


SPN J2 AU Fic: Zero to Sixty

by electricalgwen



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Medical Procedures, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 04:03:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1925994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricalgwen/pseuds/electricalgwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orthopedic surgeon Jared Padalecki had expected his newest patient to be trouble; celebrities usually were. He hadn't anticipated that the Formula One driver who'd just crashed into his life would prove such a challenge to his professional ethics by getting him all revved up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2014 round of spn_j2_bigbang. Artwork by blondebitz, who kept me on track and went above and beyond to bring the story to life. Thanks to laisserais for waving the checkered flag, and eternal thanks and hugs to deirdre_c and dancetomato for cheerleading and heroic last-minute beta-reading. Without their encouragement, this would never have driven over the finish line. 
> 
> Warnings: Graphic descriptions of surgery and an attempted resuscitation. Minor OC death.

Jared’s had a week from hell and it’s just typical that his pager goes off while he’s in the bathroom. By the time he gets down to the emergency room, the rest of the team are already doing their thing in resuscitation bay two. Morena’s getting handover from the paramedic; she acknowledges Jared's presence with a quick jerk of the head. There seem to be more police around the ER than usual.

He heads for the patient. It’s late Friday night, the guy crashed his car. Probably some fucking idiot driving drunk. Morena can fill him in on the nonessentials later.

White male, looks to be in his 30s. Collared and taped to a spine board, tube between bruised and split lips, eyes like a raccoon’s, minor lacerations over his face. Jared pulls on the gloves someone hands him and moves to the head of the stretcher, eyeballing the monitor as he passes. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen all fine.

He runs his fingers through the guy’s hair, checking for skull and scalp injuries. The light brown hair is matted in places with blood. Jared sniffs and revises his opinion of the man: there's none of the particular smell of alcohol-laced blood.

There’s bruising behind the left ear. _Could be a skull fracture. Needs neuro._ He tries to check the pupils, but the eyelids are swollen shut and he can’t open them. The facial lacerations are mostly minor and have stopped oozing. One on the forehead, though, is messy. _Probably needs Plastics to suture that one. Shame to spoil this face._ Jared’s seen a lot of beat-up faces and is pretty good by now at assessing what they look like without the damage. It looks like this guy took most of the force on his forehead; his nose and teeth aren't broken. _Definitely need to scan the brain._

He moves down. More bruising, over the sternum. Jared again ups his opinion of the guy: he had a seatbelt on. Little bit of crunching on the right side of the chest, probably a couple of broken ribs. Belly soft though, probably no internal bleeding. Also, chiseled. This guy takes good care of himself. Apart from the whole hitting-something-at-90-mph thing.

He runs his hands down each arm, checking for breaks, as Hayley finishes cutting the man’s jeans off. The left lower leg is badly swollen and bruised. The other limbs are – well, in great shape. Really great shape, actually...

Morena finishes signing off on the ambulance paperwork and waves the clipboard at him. “Fearless Leader! Need your John Hancock.”

“Xray chest, pelvis, C-spine and left tib,” Jared tells Hayley, and scrawls something illegible in the “Trauma Team Leader” box.

X-ray hasn’t arrived yet, and Dan’s finished suturing the arterial line. “Time to turn,” Jared says, and the team move into position on the opposite side of the stretcher. Hayley stands at the head to count; she’s been exempt from turning duty since her pregnancy started to show.

“Okay, slowly over on three… One, two, three!”

Jared winces at the pressure marks already forming on the man’s lower back and shoulders. He feels down along the spine – “No steps, no instability,” – lubes one finger and briefly slides it up the guy’s ass. “No blood, rectal tone normal. Taking the spine board out, hold steady.”

He pulls the board out. The team roll the patient back on Hayley’s count. His wrecked clothes have been removed and Jared again registers how fit the man is, before Morena throws a johnny shirt over him. “Keep the collar on.”

X-ray peeks in around the door. He gives her a warm smile and waves her in; he can never remember her name.

She maneuvers her machine in and starts setting up. Hayley gives her instructions and flees; the rest of the team back off several feet. Jared peels off his gloves, rolling them inside out, and tosses them into the biohazard garbage as he steps outside the door.

Gen is standing there, carrying two coffees and a bakery bag.

“I could kiss you,” Jared says, and takes the coffee she holds out.

“Come sit,” she says, and without waiting for his protest, starts walking to the ER lounge. “It’ll take them at least 10 minutes and then he’ll go to scan. You have time to sit.”

Jared shuts his mouth and follows because she’s right. He’s just afraid that if he sits, he won’t get up again.

The lounge is by the back door of the ER. There are a couple more police and some hospital security guards standing around it. One of them eyeballs Gen appreciatively as she passes. She apparently fails to notice, but Jared’s seen that little hip shimmy before; she knows, and is enjoying it.

“Shameless, Cortese,” he says, when they’re ensconced in the lounge’s crappy chairs. The hospital replaces the stuff that visitors can see; the staff end up with last decade's brown-and-grey monstrosities.

She looks at him archly. “You’re the one who threw me out with the trash. I’m just sitting here on the curb, ready for pick-up.”

He opens his mouth to remonstrate: it’s not like that, he values her, he _loves_ her, it just wasn’t going to be right for them in the long run… but she knows it all, she’s smiling and there’s no sting in her tone, and she’s holding out a blueberry streusel muffin. He fills his mouth with it instead of words. They eat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes.

“So,” she says, “spill. What happened to him?”

Jared squints, trying to remember what was on the paper Morena held out to him. “Belted driver, went off the road at high speed. Was braking and weaving pretty hard, hit the guardrail, and went through into the ditch.”

“Drunk,” Gen says and Jared shakes his head. She scrunches her eyebrows in disbelief. “Must have been.”

“Didn’t smell like it,” Jared says. “I haven't seen the tox screen yet, but I'd bet he wasn't.”

“Huh. Crazy. I wonder what happened. Maybe drugs? No way he just lost control.”

Jared watches her nibble the edges of her muffin paper clean. “I dunno. It's easy to get distracted for a second. People drive like morons on that stretch of the highway.”

Gen laughs. “You think he couldn’t cope with that?’

“What are you talking about? You know him?”

Gen narrows her eyes. “You’re kidding me.”

“What?” Jared shrugs, tipping up his cup to get the last swig of coffee. He never stirs in the sugar. He likes the way it gets sweeter at the end; it makes up for being colder.

Gen gapes at him. “You didn’t recognize him? Jared, that was Jensen Ackles. You know, the Formula One driver? The guy who used to be Nascar. It was a big story. Didn't you ever see him in the papers?”

Jared chokes on his drink. Gen whacks him on the back, spilling the last remaining coffee down the front of his scrubs. He glares at her and pulls away as she tries to mop his chest with paper napkins. “Shit. No way!”

She’s giving him her stern charge nurse look. “You didn’t check the patient’s name?”

“I dunno, I – Morena never said.”

Gen snorts. “Well, I’m not surprised Morena wouldn’t recognize the name – I don’t think she knows what Nascar is – but I can’t believe you didn’t even check your patient’s _name._ ”

He’s suddenly really annoyed – partly at her for lecturing him, partly at himself for upholding the asshole-doctor stereotype. And partly at something he can’t put his finger on, something that’s shifted in the world and makes him feel too big and awkward and like he doesn’t fit. “He was all beat up and covered in blood and…”

He trails off as he recalls the images he's seen on TV and in print. He's not a huge fan of racing, but there are a few names it's hard to miss. And the press love Jensen. Not only has he come up out of nowhere, winning race after race for a previously low-ranked team, but he's their dream combination of someone who looks great on camera and can actually utter an intelligent sentence. Jensen Ackles has made it onto the cover of half the mens' magazines on the news stands over the last year.

Jared even bought a couple of them. Admittedly, Armani suits and studio lighting are a far cry from blood-stained jeans and the fluorescent strips of the ER, but now that he knows, he can't believe he didn't recognize the face or body he was examining so closely.

Jesus Christ. He stuck his finger up Jensen Ackles’ ass.

He lets out a strangled, slightly manic laugh. Gen is giving him a funny look.

“I, uh. Yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair. “That would explain all the extra security around here.”

Gen nods. “It'll be a zoo when the media gets wind of it.” She gives him a sympathetic look. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Jared says. “I'd better get over to the scanner. Thanks again for the coffee.”

“You can repay me with insider information,” Gen says slyly. “What the real Jensen Ackles is like. Maybe even introduce me.”

“I can't...” Jared starts to object, and realizes she's laughing again.

“Relax,” she says. “You'll do fine. A patient's a patient, celebrity or not. Just remember to ask their name next time.”

 

 

 

In the scanner’s tiny control room, three or four are a crowd. Jared elbows his way through the dozen or so bodies standing or sitting on every available surface. The neurosurgery chief resident is hovering behind the technician, tapping her foot impatiently. Jared settles for standing behind her; at five foot one, Aisha’s not exactly an impediment to his view.

The pictures start to come, one every couple of seconds.

“Head’s clean,” Aisha says to a subordinate. “Tell the OR to stand down.”

“There's a lot of bruising behind the ear,” Jared says.

She waves a hand dismissively. “Probably a basal skull fracture. I’ll have a look at the bone imaging when it comes up. Nothing to do, though.”

“You look at those,” Jared says, “and then you come by the ICU and do a proper exam and stick a monitor in him. This was a high impact trauma and I don’t care if the brain looks clean now, you guys keep a close eye on him.”

He surprises even himself with the vehemence in his tone. He chalks it up to nerves over having a celebrity patient. They can be trouble. Reporters trying to weasel medical details out of the staff; paparazzi hanging around; crowds of fans trying to sneak in. And that's when they're unconscious. When the VIPs start waking up and making demands, it can be enough to make the most patient nurses lose their cool. Thankfully, he's only heard stories about the worst ones. He's had some demanding patients, sure, but nobody mega-famous.

Aisha doesn’t roll her eyes while he can see, just nods and slips out the door. Her underlings follow.

Pictures keep coming, cross-sections of the chest and abdomen in high definition. Jared sends silent thanks to the donor who bought them the 64-slice scanner last year; the images are so much better than the crap the old machine used to give them.

He was right, a couple of broken ribs and mild lung contusions, but no major bleeding. The aorta’s okay, liver and spleen intact… Jared blinks as he feels his shoulders relax. He hadn’t realized how tense they’d been.

“Belly’s clear. Doesn’t look like he needs a chest tube?” The general surgery resident is edging for the door too.

“Nope,” Jared agrees. “You can take off. I want you to come check him tomorrow, though.”

“Sure thing. Thanks, Dr. P!” The guy makes his escape, along with a med student or two.

“X-rays show a tib-fib fracture on the left,” Jared's resident says. He's only a second year, but already has half a dozen publications in big-name orthopedics journals. Jared has already had to have a couple of chats with him about sleeping occasionally, eating actual food, and getting out into the sunlight more than once a month. He figures Osric'll go far – _if_ he doesn't burn himself out early on. “There’s not a lot of displacement. I thought we could probably manage a closed reduction and cast it?”

Jared shakes his head.

“This guy’s gonna push,” he says. “You just know he’s gonna walk before we let him. I’m going with internal fixation on this one. Plus, it’ll get him into more active rehab earlier, which means less trouble with joint stiffness and muscle wasting.”

“Okay,” Osric says, looking crestfallen. He’s an excellent junior resident, one of the best Jared’s had in a while, but he takes it hard when he’s wrong, or thinks he’s wrong.

“This fracture could be managed either way,” Jared says. “Casting’s a reasonable option, and if he had more extensive injuries that were going to keep him down, I might do it. But look at it like this, Dr. Chau: this way, you get to go to the OR.”

That cheers him up. “Want me to book it? Level?”

“Three. And see if you can find some family to talk to for consent.”

Osric sketches a mock salute and races off.

“Will he be going to the OR directly?” the ICU resident asks.

Jared shakes his head again. “Cassidy’s room is still running, so we’ll have to wait. Maybe an hour.”

The guy nods. “Okay. I’d better get back. We'll get a bed ready. Who's the admitting physician?”

“He'll be under me,” Jared says. His overtired brain snickers at the double entendre, and moves on to appreciatively considering the possibilities for half a second, before being drowned in a wave of guilt and shock at his own unprofessionalism.

Jensen is a patient, for god's sake. _His_ patient.

His tall, gorgeous, famous, well muscled patient who is absolutely and utterly off limits.

A very, very small part of Jared's brain spends a moment bitterly regretting that Jensen couldn't have come in on someone else's watch – say, Cassidy's – before being squelched.

“Great. See you there,” the ICU resident says, and takes off. Jared, the CT technician, a couple of nurses and a respiratory therapist are the only ones left.

The last of the images are up. Pelvis is fine.

“Anything else, Dr. P?” the tech inquires, and Jared shakes his head. “Looks good. Let's get him off the table and up to ICU.”

The others file into the scanner room. Jared lags behind, scrolling through the images once more to take a closer look. The radiologist will call him later with the final report, but Jared's seen enough scans to be pretty confident there's nothing major wrong. The head is still a little worrying – brains can take quite a hit without anything looking too bad, on the first scans at least – but it looks like Jensen Ackles is going to survive to tell his side of the story.

“He's going for the tube!” someone yells.

Jared leaps up and lunges through the door into the scanner. Jensen, apparently roused by being rolled and slid off the CT table onto the stretcher, is showing the first signs of purposeful activity Jared's seen in him, which unfortunately consist of bringing his right hand up to his mouth and getting a firm grip on the tube currently down his windpipe.

One nurse has both hands on his right arm, trying to prevent him from moving it and pulling out the tube, but it's clearly taking all she's got to resist his strength. The radiology tech is holding his other arm down, and the CT tech has his legs, while the other nurse is swiftly wiping down the nearest IV access port with disinfectant and preparing to inject more sedation.

Jared steps up and peels Jensen's fingers off the tube, speaking in a calm voice. “It's okay. Let go of that. You're in the hospital. You had a bad accident, but you're doing okay. That's a tube in there to help you breathe. We'll get it out as soon as we can, but you've gotta let go of it now, okay?”

Before he's even finished speaking, the hand struggling against his relaxes as the intravenous sedation hits the brain. Jensen goes limp.

“Moving well, with good strength,” the nurse says, letting go of his arm. “I guess that's a good sign? Sorry, though, I didn't see that coming. He seemed completely snowed. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem. Thanks for catching it in time,” Jared says. “What's the propofol running at?”

“Ten mils an hour.”

“Up it to fifteen. He's a big guy.”

“Okay. We're keeping him sedated overnight?”

“Probably,” Jared says. “At least, until he goes to the OR. I asked neuro to stick a pressure monitor in him. His brain scan looks good, so unless there's any problem with pressure, we'll probably try and wake him up tomorrow.”

She nods. “Sounds good.” She reaches down to the foot of the bed and pulls up the blankets folded there. Jared notices her brow furrowing quizzically, and abruptly realizes he's still holding Jensen's hand in his.

He lowers it to the bed. “Pulse good and strong.” He wasn't really holding it in such a way as to check the pulse, but it's all he can think of.

She looks up to the head of the bed, where her colleague has the transport monitor hooked up and the RT has attached the oxygen tank. “Cool. We ready to roll?”

“Want a hand?” Jared offers.

“Oh no, thanks, Dr. Padalecki. We're fine.” She smiles. “You better get something to eat if you're going to the OR.”

Jared smiles back. “I just had a snack, but thanks. I'll go make sure they're setting up.”

He watches them push the stretcher down the hallway, and frowns. _Jesus, Jared. Get a grip. And not on your fucking patient._

It's the weirdness of the situation, that's all. He's not used to operating on someone he's seen on TV. It's late night, he's not firing on all cylinders. He cannot possibly be dumb or perverted enough to even contemplate what it might be like to break one of the most basic tenets of professional ethics: lusting after a patient. _An unconscious one at that. Fuck._

He just needs to get into surgery. That always clears his head.

 

 

 

A lot of people say anesthesia's like flying a plane: the tough parts are the take-off and landing. A lot of people also like to joke about what anesthesiologists do during the long flight in between. Namely, drink coffee, do sudoku, check their stock prices.

A lot of people haven't got a clue what they're talking about. Sadly, some of them are surgeons. Jared's got colleagues all too ready to trash talk the person at the other end of the table who's making sure their patient doesn't die, suffer brain damage, or wake up in the middle of their hip replacement.

Nobody talks that way about Chris, though. For one thing, he's absolutely fucking brilliant at what he does – even if he attributes it to a misguided youth spent exploring the seedier side of pharmacology. More importantly, nothing seems to faze him. Massive blood loss, medical wrecks, difficult airways, drug addicts: he takes it all in stride and does his job coolly and without fuss.

And then there's the fact he could probably take down any of them, even Tom from Plastics who's built like a brick shithouse.

“Dr. Padalecki,” Chris says, with only a faint hint of mockery, when Jared arrives in the OR. Jensen's already been transferred onto the OR table, and his ventilation tube is now feeding him anesthetic gas along with oxygenated air. “Glad you could make it.”

“Wouldn't miss it, Dr. Kane,” Jared replies, keeping his face straight. “Though I'm sure Dr. Chau had it all under control.”

Osric's sitting cross-legged on a tiny spare steel table on wheels, writing orders in the chart. It's a precarious perch; he startles at that and nearly falls off.

“Careful,” Jared advises him. “We don't want to be operating on you next.”

“You nervous?” Chris says.

Jared shrugs. “Why would I be?” He walks over to the large computer screen on the far wall, leaving Chris to apply monitors and get the drugs running while he pulls up the X-rays for the case.

He knows the answer, of course. It's tempting Fate to operate on a VIP. If anyone's going to have a hitherto unimaginable complication, it's them. Jensen's probably going to fall off the operating table and break his jaw, or get gangrene. Possibly the sterile drapes will catch fire, or the operating lamp will fall off the ceiling and crush both Jensen and Jared. Maybe Chris's anesthetic machine will explode.

Or maybe Jared'll make a tiny mistake, one that ninety-nine times out of a hundred would usually heal without any ill effects, and Jensen Ackles will never drive or walk without pain again.

Every operation carries its risks. It takes a certain level of confidence – arrogance, even – to cut into someone's flesh. An act of controlled violence, with the best of intentions. Things can go badly without it being anyone's fault. But in the end, the triumphs and the failures alike belong to the surgeon.

 _“Every surgeon carries a graveyard within himself,”_ a mentor had told him. Jared has a few graves he visits from time to time, on dark nights.

This is not the time to dwell on them, though. This is the time to breathe deliberately, visualize the actions he's done hundreds of times, mentally rehearse the variation he expects for this case based on the X-rays.

This is the time to narrow down and forget who he's operating on – forget it's a person, even – and focus on the materials in front of him. Skin. Muscle. Bone. Blood vessels. Nerves. Things that are broken and need to be fixed; things that are out of place and need to be rearranged.

“Ready for time out?” the scrub nurse says, summoning his attention back to the room.

“Jensen Ackles. Internal fixation for left tibial fracture. Left side is marked, imaging is displayed. No allergies. Antibiotics?”

“Two grams cefazolin, in,” Chris says. “Came from ICU, going back there. Warming blanket on.”

“We've got the plates?” It's a formality, asking: Jared can see them on the setup.

“Yes,” the scrub nurse reassures him.

“Okay,” Jared says. “Anybody got any concerns?”

Silence.

“Time out complete,” he says. “I'm going to scrub. Can you prep?”

By the time he comes back in, sterile blue drapes cover the whole bed. Only the left lower leg, painted in brightly colored disinfectant and positioned in the traction frame, is exposed. Dissociated from a visible person, it is a task, a target, a job to do. He takes the knife, and begins. Across from him, Osric holds things, retracts, mops away blood, keeping his field clear.

His fingers probe the inside of the limb. He’s struck by the intimacy of the act, as he has been many times before. Only a thin layer of latex separates his skin from the inside of another person’s body. The sterile, blue drapes frame a small window into the flesh.

He manipulates lax muscle and bone, aligning the fragments perfectly. He measures, chooses a plate, checks it against the bone. _Perfect._

“Hold this steady,” he says to Osric. “Drill.”

Tiny holes, punched through the tough outer layer of the bone, matching up with the holes on the plate. The bone is very solid, as he'd expect in a young, active guy. It's good: it means the screws should hold against the forces that will inevitably try to rip them out. He'll still have to keep Jensen from taking any amount of weight on the leg for at least a month or two.

“Screw to Osric,” he says.

Osric starts. “Seriously?”

“You're here to operate, Dr. Chau,” Jared says. “I trust you know how to work a screwdriver.”

“Yes, of course, I just...” Osric grins behind the mask, corners of his eyes crinkling, and takes the loaded screwdriver from the scrub nurse.

“I'll fix it if you fuck it up,” Jared says. “But you won't, will you?”

Osric shakes his head, not taking his eyes off the screw he's carefully placing through the hole at the top of the plate. “No sir!”

“Nice job,” Jared says when all the screws are placed, eyeing the brightly colored metal construct holding the bone together. It always amuses him that they're so pretty, purple and green and blue titanium, candy colors that nobody else will ever see. “Close it up.”

Osric's eyes widen again, but he holds out his right hand, palm up, towards the nurse. “Two-oh Vicryl.” She slaps it into his hand.

Jared watches him like a hawk as he sews, pulling the layers together. Occasionally he interjects with comments like “Too much tension,” or “Take a deeper bite,” but mostly he's satisfied with what he sees. Osric isn't just good at studying and research; he's got good hands.

They finish closing, apply bandages, and remove the drapes.

“What's your plan for sedation?” Chris asks. “Wanna keep him asleep overnight?”

Jared looks at the clock. There's not a lot of night left.

“Might as well. I asked neuro to check on him once we get him settled back in ICU.”

“Sounds good.”

They get Jensen transferred back onto the ICU bed and hooked up to a transport monitor, then wheel him over to the ICU. Jared checks Osric's orders, tells the nurses the same things two or three times over, asks them to make sure and page Aisha to come, and generally fusses until the ICU attending gently but firmly tells him that they know what they're doing, thanks, and why doesn't he go home and get some sleep?

It's three a.m. by now and this sounds like the best idea Jared's heard in weeks. He's still got the rest of the weekend to get through.

“Call me,” he says. “With anything at all.”

Osric and the ICU attending both assure him they will, and he goes home and sleeps as deeply, and probably more peacefully, as any heavily sedated ICU patient. He has just enough presence of mind, before falling into bed, to put his phone in the metal garbage can beside the bed. Long experience has taught him that even on maximum ringer, he can sleep right through it ringing, but amplification helps.

 

 

 

The loud – and amplified – chime of his alarm blasts him awake as the sun is just beginning to creep in his bedroom window. He startles awake, sitting bolt upright with heart racing, and then groans and flops back down, rolling over to grope with one arm off the edge of the bed. He locates and removes the phone from its resonant home, silencing it.

“Urgh,” he mutters, staring at the ceiling. His brain and body are colluding, urging him to sink back into sleep, but years of habit kick in and he's staggering to the shower, eyes still shut, before his brain can consciously register or object to this.

The water gets him halfway to a state that might charitably be called 'awake', and by the time he's towelling off, the smell of coffee is drifting from the kitchen and his stomach is on board with the idea of breakfast. That's most of the battle: there'd be no going back to sleep now. If there's any lingering sleepiness after he's eaten, it won't survive the run to work.

Jared almost never drives to work. One of these days, he'll get out of the city, get a big place with a big yard, space for friends and family to stay and a dog – maybe several dogs – to run around. He could get a place like that for what he pays now for his downtown apartment, but for now, this is enough. It's big and luxurious by a lot of city people's standards, but it's small enough he doesn't feel lonely rattling around in it by himself, and it means he's near enough the hospital he can run or bike there for anything but the most urgent cases. There are weeks so busy that the run to and from work is the only exercise he gets.

More than that, though, the run is a chance to clear his head. Prepare for the day ahead, or let go of things.

The sidewalks are nearly empty this early on a Saturday morning, and the streets aren't yet clogged with cars. The sun is still low on the horizon, the air cool on his heated skin.

As Jared approaches the hospital, he sees groups of people clustered around the front entrance plaza. He jogs a little closer until he can make out details. The people nearest the door are a line-up of hospital security; beyond them are small tight groups of mostly men with cameras. There are far more people than usual for a very early Saturday morning, standing around the bottom of the stairs or sitting on the benches of the plaza with phones and take-away coffee cups.

He keeps his head down and runs right past, around the corner of the block, and goes in through an ambulance bay in the ER. There are extra security folks here, as well, ones he's never seen before, but there are no paparazzi he can see and his ID gets him through.

He takes the staff-only elevator up to the OR complex, has a quick shower, and changes into scrubs. He briefly considers putting a shirt and tie on for ward rounds – he's always got a couple of clean changes of clothes in his locker – but dismisses it. Today's going to be busy, potentially messy. Kylie's cast needs to be cut and reshaped, Mr. Barnes needs his external fixator adjusted. And he'll have to be involved in a hands-on way, since today he's stuck with a resident even more junior than Osric.

 _Don't you want to look your professional best in front of... your patients?_ his brain hints.

He cringes at his own thought and slams his locker door. _No, Jared,_ he admonishes himself. No, you should not be making an effort to look your best for a man who is famous and stupidly hot and _your damn patient._ Scrubs are totally professional.

He's annoyed enough at himself that he deliberately doesn't check his hair in the mirror before he leaves, just runs his hands through it a couple of times.

Plus, Jensen's probably still totally unconscious.

He heads for the ICU first. Completely justifiable. They're the sickest and most unstable patients.

Jensen is no longer totally unconscious. He also no longer has a breathing tube in.

“He self-extubated around seven a.m.” the ICU resident admits. He cringes under Jared's glare. “We were weaning the sedation slowly, but he woke up with a bang and pulled the tube out before anyone could get in the room.”

“He tried that in the scanner,” Jared growls. “How come nobody was watching for it?”

Jensen's nurse steps out of the glass-doored room.

“Now that's not fair, Dr. P.”

Fletcher is one of the senior nurses on the unit. Families love him, and in his years in ICU and before that the ER, he's seen almost everything. He's a fantastically knowledgeable team member and also just a really nice guy; Jared's never seen him lose his temper with anyone. “Even with one-on-one nursing, we can't be in there all the time, and I wasn't gonna tie him down. He'd been on the lower dose for at least fifteen minutes. I didn't think he was going to wake up until I dropped the dose again.”

“Didn't you have an EEG monitor on him?” Jared demands. “What about the brain pressure sensor?”

“No,” Fletcher says, “we didn't. And before you flip out, his head's fine. Neuro came and checked on him – Dr. Collins himself came by. They decided he didn't need invasive monitoring. Which,” he presses on, forestalling Jared's objections, “is their call. And it appears they were right.”

Jared sighs. “Sorry, Fletch. I'm just worried about him.”

“I know. But you don't need to be. He flew fine without the tube, no harm done.” Fletcher spreads his hands apologetically. “Sorry it happened that way.”

“How's his breathing?” Jared looks through the glass. Jensen's chest is rising and falling in a regular rhythm, and the numbers on the monitor all look fine.

“He's a little uncomfortable with those fractured ribs, but we've got him on some morphine. His oxygen sats have been fine. We'll get him doing chest physio later today, when he wakes up again.” He gestures through the glass at his peacefully sleeping patient. “This is pretty much just exhaustion.”

“Dr. Padalecki!” Today's on-call resident comes tearing up and slides to a stop beside Jared. He's even more junior than Osric. Jared had groaned internally when he saw the call schedule for this weekend; juniors mean he spends a lot more time in the hospital. This one looks like he's still in the gangly phase of high school. He's very keen, though. “Sorry, I didn't know you were rounding. Anything you need to know, I'm on it.” He pulls an iPad out of his lab coat pocket and brandishes it, narrowly missing Jared's face. “Lab values, X-rays, discharge plans, I've got it all. Just say the word.”

“Thanks, DJ,” Jared says. “For now, though, let's have a look at the actual patient.”

The two of them walk to the bedside, as Fletcher sits down outside to write his notes in the chart. Jared takes a good look at the still-sleeping Jensen. His face looks worse than yesterday, with more bruising and swelling around the eyes; he probably won't be able to open them today. Plastics has been by and sutured the facial lacerations. The oxygen tubing running under his nose is carefully taped to his face in a squiggly pattern that avoids the cuts.

Jensen has freckles standing out across his nose and cheeks. They're cute, but Jared doesn't remember seeing them in all those magazine photos. Maybe they'd been airbrushed out, or maybe Jensen's anemic. Maybe they missed some internal bleeding. _His belly CT was fine,_ his brain reminds him before he gets fully into panic mode.

“What's his hemoglobin?”

“Ten point four,” DJ supplies, tapping at his iPad. “Sodium one thirty-eight, potassium four point two, chloride...”

“It's okay, I don't need to know all the numbers,” Jared says. “Just the abnormal ones.”

DJ scans through columns of numbers, squinting at the screen. “Not much abnormal. Just that hemoglobin a bit low. Not enough to transfuse.”

“What about the pedal pulses?”

DJ goes paler than Jensen. “Uh. I didn't check, sir.”

Jared gives him a mildly reproachful look. He's got a whole repertoire of looks for the residents, ranging from faint disappointment to death glare – plus a similar range of encouraging ones – but his sense is that he needs to take it easy on DJ for now.

“That's your job,” he says. “All the other stuff you're telling me, it's good to know, you need to check it. But ICU, the nurses... they'll check that too. You're the ortho resident: you need to check the things that relate to orthopedics, to the surgery we did – or didn't do – because nobody else is going to check that. Or if they do, they might not know what they're looking at.”

DJ gives a nervous grin. “I might not either.”

“I know,” Jared says, and gives him a small half-smile of reassurance. “That's what the next five years are for.”

He looks down. Jensen hasn't moved, hasn't even flickered an eyelid, throughout their conversation. “Mr. Ackles?” he says, once and then a little louder. “It's the doctors. We need to have a look at your leg, okay?”

Jensen sleeps on. Jared can't blame him. He'd barely managed to get up himself, and he hadn't had nearly as rough a night as Jensen.

“I'm just going to have a look now,” he says, and tugs the bedspread free from the foot of the bed. He pulls it up to expose Jensen's legs to just above the knees. The right leg looks fine, although there's a little bruising becoming evident today. The left is definitely swollen, but it doesn't look worse than yesterday and the bandages are clean. There's a blue pen line drawn around a small blood stain. It isn't spreading, though, which is good.

He gently lays the pads of his index and middle fingers over the arch of Jensen's left foot, then slides them to the inside of the ankle below the bone.

“Both good and strong,” he says, and gestures to DJ to check the same spots. It takes DJ a few moments to find the right spot, but his eyes light up when he does. He nods.

“You'll remember next time,” Jared says, and DJ nods vigorously. He pulls the covers back down over Jensen's feet, glancing back up at his face, but the man in the bed is still soundly asleep. “Circulation problems are rare, but if you don't spot it in time, they can lose function in the limb. And you'll miss it for sure if you don't look.”

DJ nods so hard he looks like a weirdly-proportioned bobble-head doll. “Absolutely. Thanks, Dr. P.”

Jared leaves the room, sparing one more glance back at Jensen.

“See?” Fletcher says, gesturing at Jared with his pen. “He's fine.”

“You're keeping him here over the weekend, though.”

Fletcher's back to writing. He doesn't say no, but he doesn't say yes either.

“Right?” Jared demands.

“Not up to me, Dr. P.”

Jared almost snaps at him, but he bites it back. Fletcher's correct, of course. And Jensen's fine; Jared's being irrationally concerned about him.

He once again admonishes himself to get a grip and heads off to find the ICU resident, to strongly suggest that Jensen be kept in the ICU until Monday. The resident nervously points out that they might need the bed, and if Jensen's well enough maybe he could be transferred to the regular ward earlier, but Jared glares at him and he desists, muttering apologies again about the tube.

 

 

 

Up on the ward, Maggie greets him with her usual big smile. “Hi, Dr. Padalecki!” Maggie’s been the clerk on the sixth floor orthopedic ward forever and nothing ever gets her rattled. “I hear you're going to be bringing us a celebrity!”

She winks at Ashley, the charge nurse who’s hurried up to see what Jared wants. “I _also_ heard you didn’t even recognize him. With a face like that!” She clasps her hands to her chest, mock swooning. “I can't wait to have him prettying up our little corner of this place.”

Jared laughs. “You might not recognize him.”

Maggie sobers immediately. “Oh no. Is it bad? We heard you just had to plate the leg. I didn't mean...”

“No, it's okay,” Jared hastily reassures her. “He's going to be fine. He's pretty banged-up, is all.” He winks. “I think he'll be back to his good-looking self for you again soon.”

“Excellent,” Maggie beams, good humor restored. She gestures to the room directly across the hallway from her desk. “I'll put him right in there.”

“Shall we?” Jared says, turning to Ashley. DJ falls in behind them as they set off to go around the ward.

On the weekend, he looks in on all the in-patients, although he usually spends a little more time chatting with his own patients. Today he inspects wounds, writes orders for a couple of patients who've been on bedrest to get up and walking, adjusts the external fixator that's keeping Mr. Barnes' pelvic fracture steady, and cuts Kylie's cast along the edges in a clam-shell fashion.

DJ's pager goes off several times during rounds. Some are minor questions he can deal with over the phone, but then the ER phones with a couple of consults. Jared sends him off to deal with them, finishes rounds, and heads for his office to do some paperwork. There's no point in going home; he'll have to review the ER patients within an hour or two.

He goes to grab a quick bite of lunch, and eats in the surgeons' lounge instead of the cafeteria. Less chance of interruption from worried families. The TV is on low in the background, and he sees a news item about Jensen. It says the crash is under investigation, and that Mr. Ackles is in serious but stable condition in the local hospital.

Jared contemplates swinging by the ICU again to check on things, but his pager goes off and it's DJ, and from then on in the day is crazy.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Noise. Beeps, pings, and a constant faint hiss. Sometimes voices, though they're muffled; he can't figure out what they're saying or why the hell they're in his bedroom. He wants to tell them to go away, but he can't quite wake up enough to get his eyes open or get the words out.

Maybe he's just dreaming them.

He doesn't like this dream. Something's nagging at him.

A dog raises its head and looks at him, its eyes glowing.

He jerks reflexively, and it's gone, he missed it, of course he missed it, but he hasn't got control, he can't stop and he can't wake up, make it stop, make it stop...

He tries to shift gears and there's a searing pain in his leg. He groans.

“Mr. Ackles?” One of the voices is clearer now. “Jensen. Can you open your eyes?”

It's surprisingly difficult, as it turns out. His eyelids feel stiff and heavy, like they've been filled with lead. He gets one open a tiny bit, and immediately squeezes it shut against the light: it's bright and harsh, artificial.

This isn't his bedroom.

“You're in the hospital.” The voice is calm and clear. “There was an accident, but you're going to be okay. You're just waking up. Can you open your eyes?”

He tries again, and this time manages to get one half-way open. The other is surprisingly resistant.

“Hey there,” the voice says. “Great. I'm just going to shine a light in there, okay?”

 _No, it's not okay,_ but Jensen can't manage to marshal the words until it's over. The room light seems less intense now, but it hurts to keep forcing his eyes open and he closes them again.

“Can you squeeze my fingers?”

He tries to grip the fingers placed in his hand punishingly hard, to make this tormentor shut up and go away, but his own fingers have apparently been replaced with limp noodles.

“Great,” the voice says again. “Okay, now can you wiggle your toes?”

He thinks he does. He's not entirely sure where his legs are – somehow, they hurt but feel very distant all at the same time – but apparently they're still connected to him because the voice says “great” again.

“Hold your arms up in the air. A little higher? Good, great. Keep your arms there, keep your eyes closed, just a little longer... Great, you can put them down.”

“Hurts,” Jensen finally manages to croak out. Someone had apparently strapped fifty pound weights to his wrists; lifting his arms off the bed had been near impossible and his ribs hurt like he's pulled all the muscles there... “My side.”

“You've got some broken ribs,” the voice informs him. “I'll give you something more for that in a minute. I just need you to answer a few more questions first, okay?”

“Long as I don't have to move,” Jensen mutters.

He knows the year, month, his birthday, his address, and the President's name, and apparently that's good enough because after that he feels a warm fuzzy wave roll over him and his chest stops hurting just before he falls asleep again.

 

 

 

The next time he wakes up is a little smoother. It's darker, his leg isn't throbbing, and he can get both eyes open at least a crack. It's a different voice this time, a different face leaning over the bed.

“Do you remember what happened?” she says, and Jensen tries, but it's mostly a blur. He doesn't remember much about the accident, and nothing after that until waking up in hospital.

“It's okay,” she says. “That's pretty normal, nothing to worry about. Your scans look good, and we keep checking on your brain. There's no sign of injury. Lots of people don't remember their accidents.”

He overhears the resident talking to the nurse about him pulling his own breathing tube out. He doesn't remember that, either.

“Just be glad you didn't pull your catheter out,” his nurse says, and Jensen winces at the thought.

His ribs hurt. They've got him on morphine, and he drifts in and out of sleep, being woken far too often for someone to shine a bright light in his eyes and ask him again where and when he is. He considers making up answers, but decides ruefully that it probably wouldn't amuse them as much as it might him.

Sunday morning, he's finished answering yet another round of questions and is just drifting back to sleep, when he's dragged back to consciousness by yet a different set of voices at the foot of his bed. He opens his eyes, as much as he can anyway, grumpy and prepared to give them hell because damn it, he's basically _fine_ and he just did this, but then he gets a look at the new arrivals and wow. His day has just improved.

Admittedly, he's still groggy and his head aches like a son of a bitch, and his vision's still a little blurry (although he's not keen on telling them that in case they don't let him eat or get up or have his catheter out), but he's pretty sure that the man standing at the foot of the bed, wearing pale blue scrubs and a white lab coat, is the most gorgeous guy he's ever seen.

His mouth would water, if it weren't so dry. God, he'd kill for a beer. Even a mouthful of flat ginger ale. His tongue feels like sandpaper and he strongly suspects nobody's brushed his teeth since he got here.

Great. He's meeting the man of his dreams – the good dreams, not the hospital ones – and not only does he look like he went nine rounds against Mike Tyson but he can probably knock him out from here with his breath.

“Good morning, Mr. Ackles,” the man says, and wow, that voice is quite welcome to wake Jensen up any time. “I'm hearing good things about you. Everything's stable. We're just going to check on your leg.”

“My leg?”

“Your left leg was broken,” the man says, and now Jensen remembers, yes, Mandy – or was it Mindy? – had told him at some point. Damn it.

The man and a couple of younger people in similar scrubs – interns or residents, Jensen figures – bend over the foot of his bed. Jensen's propped a little way up on pillows, so he sees his legs for the first time when they move aside the sheets. He flinches at the sight of the left. Bandages cover much of it, but what he can see is swollen. And a startling color.

“Should it be that pink?” he says.

“Don't worry, that's just some staining from the disinfectant,” one of the interns says.

“Looks good,” the man says. “No sign of infection.” He squeezes Jensen's toes, and the interns crowd their heads closer together, watching. “Good capillary refill.”

“Are you my doctor?” Jensen asks.

“I am,” the vision answers. “Sorry, you were unconscious when we first met. I'm Dr. Padalecki. This is my resident, Dr. Chau, and Jenn is a medical student on the team.”

“Thank you,” Jensen says, heartfelt. “Thanks for patching me up, Dr. Pada... Padalock...” His tongue, thick and clumsy in his dry mouth, stumbles on the name. He feels his face reddening with heat as the doctor laughs, but it's a nice laugh.

“You can call me Jared,” he says, and he doesn't sound offended at all. “Anyone who's just emerged from a coma deserves a break.”

“I was in a coma?”

“Technically,” Dr. Jared says. “Although I think a lot of that was the sedative medication. Your brain scan was good, but you've had at least a mild concussion. You may have bad headaches for a while.”

“I feel pretty good,” Jensen says. “When can I go home?”

The others standing around Dr. Jared suppress laughter. Dr. Jared looks sympathetic. “Not for a while, I'm afraid. You're still in the intensive care unit and your left leg is patched together. You won't be able to walk on it for at least six weeks.”

“Six weeks?!” Jensen tries to sit up at that, and falls back immediately with a groan as his ribs remind him why he shouldn't get up. He'd forgotten about that little detail. Okay, maybe he isn't ready to go home quite yet.

“At least,” Dr. Jared confirms. “You won't have to stay in here all that time, but you'll have to stay off your leg. Sorry. I know you'll be eager to get up and get going, but it's important to give it the time to heal properly. Otherwise you're asking for all sorts of trouble.”

Jensen sighs and closes his eyes – then opens them again, because Dr. Jared's not likely to stick around very long, and frankly it's the best view he's had in months. Too bad he had to get beat to shit to see it. “All right.”

Dr. Jared looks a little surprised, as if he hadn't expected Jensen to agree that easily. “Okay then. We'll talk more over the next few days. When you're more awake.”

The team heads out and closes the glass door behind them. Jensen watches them converse for a moment, but when Dr. Jared leaves, fatigue takes over again and he lets his eyes fall shut.

He drifts off to sleep thanking the universe that his doctor is so easy on the eyes and nice to talk to. (He figures he must be competent, or Morgan wouldn't have let him near Jensen.) He hopes he can remember his name. Although at least if he doesn't, he can blame concussion or the drugs.

 

 

 

He wakes up again late that afternoon.

There's a large, comfy chair drawn up beside the bed, and Danneel is there. Her feet are tucked up under her, and she appears to be asleep. She's wearing jeans and a loose – although no doubt extremely trendy and expensive – sweatshirt, and her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail. She has almost no make-up on. Her face is smooth in sleep, mouth lax.

He's not sure he's ever seen her look so real.

“Hey,” he says, or tries to say. His voice comes out weird, all scratchy and thin.

He tries again. “Hey. Danni.” It hurts his throat; he coughs, and that wakes her.

“Jensen,” she says, uncurling and leaning forward. She reaches out and takes his hand between both of hers. “Oh, my god. Jensen.”

He's startled to see tears well up in her eyes. Danni doesn't cry easily. He'd never imagined she'd cry over him.

“Hey,” he says again, “hey now. Don't worry. I'm fine.”

The tears spill over and down her cheeks. She lets go with one hand, still gripping his with the other, and wipes them away. “You could have been killed.”

“I wasn't.” Jensen tries to smile, then winces; it pulls at something tight and sore on his face.

“I was so worried. They phoned me, and said you were in the ICU, they didn't know if you were going to wake up...” She ducks her head. “I came in right away, but when saw you when you were in there, all tubes and wires and unconscious... I'm sorry, I kind of freaked out. I couldn't stay.”

She hitches on a breath, angrily wiping away more tears. “I... look, I'm sorry, I'm a shitty girlfriend, but... I don't do well with medical stuff. I asked them to let me know when you were out of the ICU. If I'd known you were awake, had the tube out... I would have been here sooner.”

“You didn't have to come now,” Jensen says. “I still look like hell.”

“I needed to be here.”

“Why?” Jensen shrugs. “There aren't any cameras here. You don't have to pretend.”

He realizes as the words leave his mouth that he's being unintentionally harsh, but it's still freaking him out that she's crying over his injuries.

“Jesus, Jensen!”

She pulls her other hand free, meets his eyes, and wow. She is pissed. “I'm your girlfriend. And the important part of that is _friend._ I get that you are not in love with me, and I am not in love with you either, not like that. But I care about you. A lot.”

She sucks in a fierce breath and bites her lip, and Jensen is so astonished that he can't find any words.

“It's not the blood and bruises. I've seen lots of drivers in bad shape before. It's... my grandma died when I was eleven, Jensen. They thought I was old enough to know what was going on, and so they took me to see her. In the ICU. It was...” she shudders, “it was a bad decision. That wasn't Gramma.”

He squeezes her hand silently.

“That's what I can't deal with. All the tubes, the wires, the machines –” She sucks in a deep breath and shakes a stray piece of hair out of her face, smoothing her expression. “I lost it when I saw you like that. Part of me just couldn't believe you'd ever wake up, no matter what the doctors said.”

She asks him what happened, and he explains once again that he doesn't know, he can't remember. Every time he thinks back to the evening, it's mostly a blur.

She tells him that generally they've been successful at keeping the press at bay. There are one or two papers that chose to go with rumors about him being drunk at the wheel, but mostly the headlines have been sympathetic. Champion driver narrowly survives off-track crash, that sort of thing.

“Okay,” she says. “I should let you rest. I'll be in tomorrow, okay?”

She kisses him on the forehead, gives his hand a last squeeze and leaves.

He lies there staring at the ceiling after she's gone. The faintest hint of her perfume lingers.

He's been happy with Danni. They're good friends. It's no hardship, the relationship they've worked out. They like the same sorts of activities, enjoy going the same places. It's easy to be a couple. It's easy to be spend time together. Be photographed together. And they're always very discreet about any encounters on the side.

But – he could have died.

Clichés swirl in his brain. Life is short. Seize the day. Be yourself.

Life is definitely unpredictable. Is it really worth it to continue pretending to be someone he's not? He loves driving.

What would it have been like to open his eyes and see someone special?

He did, he reminds himself. He opened his eyes earlier to six feet plus of perfection. Too bad it was just there to squeeze his toes and ask about numbers.

 

 

 

The next time he opens his eyes, Morgan's there. It's evening; the sky is dark outside, with only faint strips of orange and pink above the horizon.

“Ackles,” he says. “You gave us all quite a scare.”

“So Danni tells me,” Jensen says dryly. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Morgan shrugs. “At least you were driving your own car.”

Jensen snorts. “That'll be a write off.”

“Yeah,” Morgan agrees. “Your insurance company took one look and gave in.”

“It'll be a while before I'm looking for a replacement.” Jensen picks at the edge of the blanket. “The doctor says it'll be at least six weeks before I'm allowed to put any weight on the leg.”

“You could get an automatic,” Morgan suggests. “No clutch – you wouldn't need your left leg at all.”

Jensen throws him an incredulous look before catching the hint of suppressed mirth in Morgan's eyes. “Yeah, right. I'll wait, thanks.”

“We're getting Phil to finish out the season.”

It's no big deal. There will be other races. Jensen had known, obviously. He can't even get up and walk to the fucking bathroom, let alone drive a car; he's not going to be racing any more this year.

Still, it hurts, in a different way than his head or the pain in his ribs. He closes his eyes.

“You know,” Morgan says, “you look like hell. Sam wanted to come with me, but I'm thinking it's a good thing I left her back at the office. She'd have fainted on the spot.”

“You kidding? She's way tougher than that.” Jensen opens his eyes and lifts a hand to his forehead, very gently feeling the lines of stitches. “Danni was here earlier. Wasn't bad enough to scare her away.”

“Of course not. That'd be bad press, dumping you when you're injured. Think of the photo ops she's going to score, caring for you in your hour of need.”

Jensen sighs. Morgan's never liked Danni, and the feeling's mutual. It's not worth arguing, though, because there's a kernel of truth to his complaints. He thinks Danni's taking advantage, using Jensen for his money and fame, and he's right. But he doesn't know – Jensen's not sure he'd known himself, until this morning – how much Danni actually cares for Jensen as a person.

And he sure as hell doesn't know that Jensen is using Danni, just as much. Because Morgan, together with the entire racing world, would _really_ not like it if Jensen Ackles started going to parties with a boyfriend on his arm instead.

“I don't think they'll be keen to photograph me in this condition,” he says, trying to make light of it.

“Are you kidding?” Morgan snorts. “I had to plow through a dozen reporters on my way in. The hospital's doing a pretty good job of keeping them out, but they're all over anyone they recognize as being connected to you.”

He tilts his head. “I give Danneel credit for how she's handled that, at least.”

“How?” Jensen asks.

“Told them to go fuck themselves. Politely.”

Jensen huffs out a laugh, immediately regretting it as pain stabs through his right side.

“Some of the bottom feeders were caught trying to get at your ER records. Hospital security threw them out, but they'll probably keep trying.”

Jensen sighs. “What's in the papers?”

“Pretty bland stuff,” Morgan says. “Just that you were in an accident and the hospital says you're in 'serious but stable' condition. There's speculation about what this means for the rest of the season for us, and if or when you'll return to racing. And about what happened, of course.”

He leans forward, elbows on knees, face intent. “Do you remember anything? About how it happened?”

“I –” Jensen frowns, then winces and consciously tries to smooth out his face, reducing the pull on his stitches. “There was an animal on the road. I think it was a dog.”

Morgan raises his eyebrows.

“I know.” Jensen sighs. “But I'm not sure what happened after that. I missed the dog, of course. Didn't see it till I was nearly on it, but I danced over into the left lane. There were a couple of cars coming, but they were a long way off. I had lots of time to get back.”

He bites his lip, pushing at his memory. “Something was wrong. It's... I can't remember the crash, it's all kind of fuzzy. But I can remember feeling... something was wrong.”

“They got statements from the oncoming cars,” Morgan says. “The drivers both said you were weaving all over the road before you crashed through the guardrail. They slowed down and pulled over. Figured you were a drunk driver.”

“I wasn't,” Jensen says, urgently. “You know I wouldn't –”

“Relax, kid.” Morgan shakes his head. “I know. Plus, they tested you. For everything.”

He hesitates, jaw tightening.

“What?”

“There's quite a drop on the other side of the rail. The car rolled at least once. The structural damage is bad enough that the insurance company didn't even bother examining it in detail. It's not worth their time.”

He sighs.

“I had them bring us the car,” he says. “I'd like to have a closer look at it.”

“What's the point?” Jensen shrugs. “I mean, it was a great car, but I wasn't that attached to it. I'm sure they're right that it's not worth fixing.”

“I'm not interested in fixing it,” Morgan says. “I _am_ interested in knowing what made my top-ranked driver lose control of his civilian car in good weather on a stretch of road he knows like the back of his hand.”

Jensen stares blankly at him for a few moments, until it clicks.

“You think –” His face scrunches in disbelief, and even the pain doesn't override his surprise. “You think...what? Someone messed with my car?”

It's unreal. Morgan can't actually mean that. It sounds like something out of a movie.

“I'd just like our guys to have a look at it.”

“Jesus,” Jensen mutters. The pain in his side is getting worse again; he's finding it hard to take deep breaths. “Wow. Okay. Let me know what you find.”

“You okay?” Morgan says in concern. “You look pale.”

“Hurts,” Jensen says, closing his eyes again.

“Sorry, sorry.” He can hear Morgan pushing back his chair. “I should have saved it for later. Sorry, Jensen, I didn't mean to tire you... I'll call the nurse.”

“’Kay,” Jensen mumbles. He listens to Morgan opening the door and calling for the nurse, then making more apologetic good-bye noises.

It does hurt, and it's easier if he lies very still and closes his eyes. But mostly he needs space and quiet to think. To digest what Morgan just said: somebody, maybe, did this on purpose. Somebody might have tried to – what, kill him? Seriously mangle him?

He opens his eyes briefly to reassure the worried nurse that he's alive and awake, and gladly succumbs to the morphine she injects. It takes both his whirling thoughts and his pain and places them somewhere far away, and he drifts off to sleep again.

 

 

 

By the time Monday rolls around, Jared's running on empty. The weekend had continued to bring its usual mix of falls, fights and car crashes, keeping him busy enough that he'd mostly been able to avoid thinking about things he shouldn’t. He'd had to plate a complicated ankle fracture Saturday night, and on Sunday, three old ladies fall down their respective church steps and break their hips. He gets two of them pinned, but puts the last off for Monday. It's stable enough to wait, and that's safer than doing it past midnight when everyone's tired.

It's still tougher than it should be to haul himself out of bed at six am – although the automatic coffee maker performs its usual magic of having hot, fragrant energy ready and waiting for him. _Sucks getting old,_ he thinks ruefully as he slices a banana over his cereal. _Okay, not old. But I can't do the hours I used to as a resident without feeling it._

He decides to drive to the hospital. Exercise is important, but he's got to save his energy if he's going to get through today. Plus, this way it should be easier to avoid any nosy reporters still persistent enough to be hanging around. They're not likely to lurk on the in-ramp to the hospital garage, unless they're looking to become patients themselves.

He heads for the ICU, but bay three is now occupied by a body waiting to be an organ donor. The whole ICU is packed; they must have decided that Jensen was well enough to move to the general ward. He catches Fletcher quickly looking the other way when Jared glances in his direction, and feels bad: he's never been the type to take out his temper or worries on the hospital staff. He's not going to start now, just because he's more invested in a particular patient than he should be.

He heads up to the sixth floor and checks the patient list. Sure enough, Jensen's there. He's listed as being in the private room at the far hallway corner. Of course he is: it's large, quiet, and has big windows. A VIP room.

“Guess you didn't get your way,” he says to Maggie as he passes her desk.

“Nope,” she sighs. “Uh, Dr. P? You might want to make a little noise as you get near the room. Mr. Ackles' girlfriend is here.”

They've had some awkward moments before when patients have taken the concept of a private room a little too literally. Yes, it's their room, and yes, a healthy sexuality is an important part of life, but possibly a hospital bed is not the best place to explore this.

Of course Jensen has a girlfriend. When he walks in, he realizes he should have known. He's seen her in the magazines too. Usually draped over a car: she's one of their favorite models. Sometimes draped over Jensen in his photo shoots. Thankfully, she isn't right now; no awkward moments on either side.

Admittedly, she's often wearing less clothing and more makeup in her photos. Still. Even in casual clothes, she's not someone you'd forget.

He approaches the stunning redhead who's sitting in the chair beside the bed, reading something on her phone. Jensen appears to be asleep. He still looks pale, despite his apparently adequate hemoglobin levels – though that could just be in contrast to the black eyes, and the tiny blue nylon stitches holding his facial lacerations together. Jared moves closer and inspects the repairs. They're healing well; Plastics did a nice job. Half a year from now, they'll be hardly visible. You'll probably be able to see the scars in good light if you know where to look.

The leg scars will be a lot more obvious. And Jared's been doing trauma work for enough years now that he knows some of the worst, longest-lasting damage isn't visible at all.

Jensen's girlfriend looks up from her phone and switches it off.

“Hello,” he says. “I'm Dr. Padalecki, the orthopedic surgeon.”

She drops her phone in the purse hanging on the edge of her chair and stands, smiling and holding out her hand. “I'm Danneel Harris. Jensen's girlfriend. How's he doing?”

“Nice to meet you,” Jared says, shaking her hand. “From what the nurses tell me, he's doing pretty well, but I've come to check on things myself.”

“Oh, of course,” she says. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No need.” Jared smiles. “It's up to you. I'm going to take the bandages down and have a look at things, though, so if that might bother you...”

“Not at all.” She tucks a stray chunk of hair behind her ear. “Does he have pins sticking out?”

Jared blinks. “No, we got it nicely pinned on the inside, so he doesn't need any extra stabilization. Not even a cast. But he can't take any weight on it for now.”

“Good luck keeping him down,” she says.

“I already gave him the bad news,” Jared says. “At which point he tried to get out of bed and prove me wrong, but his body let him know that wasn't an option yet. He'll try again, in a few days, when he's feeling better.” He smiles, trying to reassure her. “But we're used to patients who really aren't patient. We'll make sure he doesn't do himself any damage.”

She looks dubious, but doesn't say anything further.

Jared moves to the bed. She comes up on the other side of it.

“Mr. Ackles?” he says. “Sorry to disturb you. I need to have a look at your leg.”

Jensen shifts, but doesn't open his eyes.

“Mr. Ackles?” he says. “It's Dr. Padalecki – Jared.”

Jensen stirs again, and this time his eyes open. The swelling around them is going down, so he can get them open wider. They look pretty terrible still, the whites not so much white as dark red from hemorrhage.

“I came to have a look at your leg,” he says again. “How are you feeling?”

Jensen's mouth quirks wryly. “It could be worse.”

Jared yanks the covers free from the end of the bed, ruining the beautifully tucked hospital corners, and pulls them up to tuck them in around Jensen's knees. He inspects the bandages.

“Looks good. We'll take those off tomorrow.”

“And then I can go home?”

Jared looks up and Jensen is giving him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

“Oh, dear.” Jared puts on a concerned face and turns to Danneel. “He doesn't remember the conversation he and I had yesterday, which means the concussion is worse than we thought. We'll definitely have to keep him in for longer.”

Danneel nods solemnly. “Whatever he needs, Doctor.”

Jensen laughs. “You two are terrible actors.”

Jared turns back, trying not to smirk. “You started it.”

Jensen sighs. “I'm not staying in here for six weeks. I'll go stir crazy.”

“I didn't say you had to stay here that long,” Jared says, “just that you can't take any amount of weight on it until then. We'll get the therapists in to see you later today, and they'll get you a wheelchair you can use for now. You can get out and get some fresh air. When you're feeling stronger, they'll fit you for crutches to go home with. But bear in mind, with your broken ribs, using crutches is going to be pretty uncomfortable.”

He examines Jensen's leg, acutely aware of Jensen's girlfriend watching him. It's routine, every move and touch he makes is one he's made hundreds of times before, calm and professional, so why does he feel so tightly wound inside and guilty to be placing his hands on this man in front of her?

Everything's fine. He reassures them, and briefly explains the usual time course of healing and what to expect.

“It takes around 20 to 30 weeks for it to really heal solidly. It's important to make sure you're eating a healthy diet, and getting enough calcium. We'll be keeping a close eye on things for a couple of weeks, to make sure it's healing up and there's no infection. You can start getting up with crutches in a couple of weeks – I'd like to let your ribs recover a bit first – but you won't be able to take any weight on the leg.”

“Isn't weight-bearing good for healing?” Danneel asks.

“Uh, yes,” Jared says. “Some. But not too much, and not right away. We'll check it with X-rays every so often, let you take more weight as the bone heals and gets stronger.”

“Could he have a brace? Would that help?”

Jared blinks at her again. “Um, no. With the plates in it, he doesn't really need one, and it wouldn't get him walking any sooner. I still wouldn't want him to take weight on it until it starts healing.”

“Sorry,” she says. “I tend to ask a lot of questions.”

“And she's studied pre-med,” Jensen says, smiling at her.

Jared can't quite contain the look of surprise, and kicks himself for it when he sees Danneel notice it.

“Modeling's a job,” she says lightly. “I didn't get in to med school the first time I applied, and I needed something to pay the bills. Then I got picked up by the team, to be a regular. It's good, for now.”

“Are you going to apply again?” Jared says, then coughs. “Sorry, now I'm the one asking questions. It's none of my business.”

“I don't mind,” she says. “Probably, yes. I'm not going to look like this forever, and modeling's not the most exciting job mentally.” She reaches out and smoothes the edge of Jensen's bandages. “I've been thinking of applying to physio instead, though. I've seen a lot of broken bones, sprains and stuff with the team. The work the physios do is really impressive.”

Jared nods. “They're a hugely important part of our team here.” He turns his attention back to Jensen. “Kelly will be along later today to do some range of motion exercises with you, and she'll be the one fitting you for crutches later.”

“When can I have a shower?” Jensen scratches at the edge of the bandage. “Bed baths suck. And I really want to wash my hair.”

“You can have a proper bath,” Jared says, keeping his voice steady and not at all imagining it. “With the one leg out. The nurses will help you in, and they can help you wash your hair. But you have to keep the leg dry for now.”

“What about hydrotherapy?” Danneel, of course.

“Not yet,” Jared says. “Later on, yes, we'll probably get you in the pool. Exercises in the water are really good at getting back the range of movement at your ankle. Depending on how fast it's healing, and how the rest of you is feeling, it might be helpful to do some pool running. It keeps your general fitness level up when you can't do your usual exercises.”

“I'm not sure I even own a bathing suit,” Jensen says. Jared's brain unhelpfully supplies a picture of Jensen in a tiny Speedo.

He excuses himself, saying he has to go to surgery. Jensen tells him not to work too hard. He thinks Danneel is scrutinizing them both with an odd expression, but maybe he's just being paranoid.

 

 

 

Trauma list is supposed to start at noon but the fucking neurosurgeons are running late again, so he ends up sprawled on the too-soft sofa in the lounge, watching CNN.

“Padalecki.” Mike from cardiac comes in and drops down next to him. “You look like shit, man.”

“Fuck off.” Jared’s too tired for a clever comeback. “I was on the weekend with first and second years. Called me about every little thing.”

“Any good cases?”

“Nailed a couple of femurs.”

Mike snorts and elbows him. “That all you nailed?”

Jared rolls his eyes and says “fuck off” again.

“Gen still not come to her senses?” Mike sighs theatrically. “You really screwed that one up, my friend.”

Jared doesn't have energy to do more than give him the finger.

Katie Cassidy comes in. “Hey, Jared. How was the weekend?” She'd traded call with Jared so she could attend a conference out of town.

“Busy. Like, super busy.” Jared yawns. “Can't wait to catch up on sleep tonight. You definitely got the better end of the deal on that. How was the conference?”

She shrugs. “Not bad. A lot of the usual marketing shit. Couple of good papers.” She brightens. “Oh! Have you seen the new Synthes RIA? I got to try a demo model. It's a reamer that shoots fluid out the end.”

Jared heroically fights to keep his face straight. “Gotta say, I have not heard of that.”

“Reams, irrigates and aspirates all at once.” Jared's nearly choking at this point, but she's watching the newsfeed scrolling on the TV and doesn't notice. “Pretty cool. We should put it on the wishlist here.”

“I bet the hospital would be glad to improve your reaming abilities,” Mike says. Jared loses it at this point, sliding down into the couch cushions and snorting with laughter.

Katie gives them both a disgusted glare. “God, you guys.”

“Sorry,” Jared says, still laughing. “Little punchy here. It really was a rough weekend.”

“Guess your call karma sucks,” she says coolly.

A beeping noise sounds.

“Yours,” Mike says.

Jared groans. “Okay. One more, and then I can go home. I can do this.”

 


	3. SPN J2 AU Fic: Zero to Sixty (3/4)

  
Jared tries to check in on all his patients briefly each day, but he doesn't always come in, sit down and talk. There are always more patients, busy clinics, operations to get to. Once a patient is out of the woods, the residents do a lot of the day to day work: twice daily rounds, discussions about post-hospital care, pain levels and medication adjustment, that sort of thing.

He keeps on visiting Jensen, though, even after he would normally have turfed him to the residents. He tells himself it's because of the VIP issue. The residents aren't going to want to have the responsibility of making any decisions on someone who might turn around and sue their asses off. But if he's honest with himself, he'll admit that it's because talking to Jensen is the highlight of his day. Even if, every single day, Jensen inquires when he'll be going home, and pushes Jared to let him walk.

He usually makes an effort to sit down with his patients, even if only for a few minutes. Sometimes he can't, if there aren't any free chairs – the hospital's Infection Control team frowns at sitting on patient beds – but he tries to do so whenever he can. For one thing, it makes a good impression, makes people feel like you spent more time than you did. For another, he stands enough as it is; brief breaks where he can get off his feet are nice (it's one of the unofficial rules of surviving surgical residency: never stand when you can sit.)

He realizes, though, that he's spending far too long in Jensen's room, and decides that the next time he'll stand, even though the chairs are all free.

As it happens, this is not the best idea.

Danneel's often there when he visits, usually with a fresh list of questions for him. Today, though, Jensen is alone in the room, sitting up in his wheelchair.

“Hey,” Jensen says with a grin. He's looking much better; it's amazing what difference a week or two can make. The swelling around his eyes has gone down, bruises fading to interesting shades of yellow and green. All the stitches have been removed from his face, and the nurses have managed to work all the matted blood, glass, and disinfectant out of his hair.

“Hey yourself,” Jared says. “How are the ribs feeling?”

Jensen shrugs. “Pretty good. I can take a deep breath now, if I'm careful. Coughing still hurts like a bitch.”

“Yeah, it's going to for a while,” Jared says, not without sympathy. “How often are you needing the painkillers?”

“I've been trying to get by without,” Jensen admits. “I don't like taking them.”

Jared nods. “Understandable. But use them if you need to. Times like this is what they're for. You don't need to be tough.”

“I'm not being tough.” There's a glint in Jensen's eye; Jared knows what's coming next. “The leg hardly hurts at all. How about letting me start with the walking?”

“Not yet,” Jared says, as he does every day. “Next week.”

“Promise?” Jensen says.

He's looking up at Jared with a mock pleading expression, and God.

Jensen must know how hard that look is to resist. Jared prays he doesn't realize how goddamn sexy it is. How it stirs Jared's blood and sends his mind down wildly inappropriate trains of thought.

He suddenly realizes that he's standing there with his crotch level with Jensen's face.

“I promise,” he manages. “We'll fit you for crutches next week. You can't take any weight on the leg yet. But you can start getting up and around.”

His voice sounds strained to his ears. He desperately hopes he sounds normal to Jensen. Their eyes are still locked and the room suddenly feels smaller, almost claustrophobic. He backs away slowly, trying to look casually calm and professional, and tears his gaze away from Jensen's to look down at Jensen's leg. He's allowed to look at that. It's his job.

“Awesome,” Jensen says, and Jared shivers, because _Jensen's_ voice sounds deeper and more strained than usual.

It's his ribs. It's got to be.

He swallows convulsively, throat dry, and can't help looking back at Jensen's face.

Jensen's jaw is tensed and there's a flush across his cheeks.

Pain. That's all it is. He's been under-dosing the painkillers.

“Okay,” he says. “Next week. I'll tell the therapists. I'd better get going.”

 

 

 

The encounter haunts his thoughts that night as he drifts off to sleep. It had to be all in his mind, a product of his inappropriate attraction to Jensen. One-sided attraction, that's all. He's reading into it.

And yet. The look on Jensen's face. If Jared hadn't known better...

A few days later, he's convinced himself he was imagining it. He's barely seen Jensen since then, mostly letting the residents update him, once passing by and waving from the doorway with just a quick exchange of “Everything ok?”

Friday though, he's on his own for rounds. The charge nurse was busy elsewhere, and the residents have scattered to the operating rooms. Jared's stomach sinks a little when he gets to the corner room and realizes that once again Jensen doesn't have any visitors, but he kicks himself – why should that matter? – and knocks on the open door before walking in.

“Dr. Jared!” Jensen grins – god, if only he knew what that grin does to Jared – and motions him to a chair. “I guess you've been pretty busy?”

“Yeah,” Jared says, not entirely untruthfully. He hesitates for a moment, remembers last time, and sits. “The team keeps me updated, though. Sounds like things are going well.”

“All set for walking next week,” Jensen nods. “Can I go home Tuesday?”

Jared sighs and furrows his brow. “No.”

He'd aimed for a tone of mock exasperation, but some genuine exasperation must have crept in, because Jensen looks contrite.

“I'm sorry,” he says, and wheels forward, closer to Jared. Jared resists the urge to shove his own chair backwards. “I know I'm being a pain.”

“You'll get there,” Jared says. “You're already ahead of schedule. But you could seriously screw things up if you do too much too soon. Trust me, I've seen it and it's not pretty.”

He sighs. “I'm sorry about the season. I know it's tough not to be able to do the stuff you usually do. The most important thing now, though, is to heal up properly so you can get back to it next year.”

“You think I'm going to get back to it?” Jensen says, and this time, his voice is definitely strained.

“Yeah, if you're smart about it,” Jared says. “Take your time. You don't need to push yourself so hard.”

Jensen's eyes are closed, jaw clenched. He takes a deep breath, then another and another, and Jared suddenly realizes he's near tears.

“Hey,” he says weakly. “It's okay. You're going to be okay.”

“Promise?” Jensen says again, and Jared hesitates only briefly before reaching out a hand and laying it on Jensen's arm.

“I promise,” he says.

Jensen takes a few more breaths, slow and steady, and finally opens his eyes. They're a little bright, but no tears fall.

“I was really worried,” he says, looking at the floor. “I kept thinking, what if I'm crippled. What if I can't drive? This is my _life._ I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't racing.”

“But you can't have thought you'd do it forever?” Jared says. He doesn't follow racing obsessively, but he knows the big names and keeps up with some of the news stories, and he doesn't remember anyone continuing to race past their prime.

“I never really thought about it,” Jensen admits. “I guess I knew it wouldn't be forever, but retirement was years off, you know? Didn't exactly make plans for it. I figured I'd be old and tired – or dead – by then.”

“What did you do before you started racing?” Jared asks, pulling his hand back. “You're pretty new on the circuit, aren't you?”

Jensen gives him a look. “In the same way you're new at doing surgery. Ever heard the expression, 'he's an overnight success ten years in the making'? I've been racing since I was wet behind the ears, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I started getting recognized. Before that, I was mostly winning small races, but a lucky streak got me into a wildcard spot for the NASCAR cup.”

He shakes his head. “After that, things got big – and a little weird. I didn't win it, of course, but I did pretty well. That's when I started getting the interviews. And then Jeff Morgan came to talk to me.”

Jared vaguely remembers the name.

“Formula One isn't as big here, but it's big money worldwide. I mean, _really_ big. The teams would love to see it gain some ground in the US, and they figured that maybe bringing in some popular US drivers would help.”

“The cars are pretty different, though, right?” Jared says, aware that he's way out of his specialty. “And the rules? How'd that work?”

“For sure,” Jensen agrees. “And so a lot of the more established guys just laughed at them. But I figured, what the hell? I was trying to make a name for myself and make some money, and I thought, if I pull this off –”

“– You'll be famous,” Jared completes the sentence.

“Yeah. It was a bit of a gamble, but...”

Jared nods in appreciation. “But it worked.”

“Yeah.” Jensen nods. “I think the Nascar experience actually helped a lot. The F1 guys don't like passing. It's pretty risky, because of the aerodynamics, so if you want to get ahead of another car a lot of it comes down to pitstop times. A lot of them thought I was crazy to even try a passing move.”

“And now it's your signature.”

Jensen eyes him. “You been reading up on me?”

Jared blushes. “I follow racing a bit.”

“Sorry,” Jensen says. “I was just teasing. Anyway, Morgan's been great. Red Bull's got technically excellent cars, and I – I love it, you know? The crowds, the adrenaline – all of it kind of fades when you get in the zone. Yeah, passing can be really dangerous. But I don't make a move unless I'm ninety-nine percent sure.”

He hesitates.

“One of these days, I'll get it wrong. Maybe that's what happened the other night. But – ”

Jared frowns. “What?”

Jensen worries at his lower lip with his teeth. Jared's so involved in watching this, and trying not to get caught watching, that he almost doesn't process what Jensen says next.

“Morgan thinks maybe it wasn't an accident I lost control. He thinks maybe somebody screwed with the car.”

_“What?!”_

Jared is horrified. It's almost unbelievable, that someone could have deliberately done this to Jensen? As a trauma expert, he knows it could have been a whole lot worse.

“Has he gone to the police?”

Jensen shakes his head. “It's not like he has any proof. Even if they find something weird about the car, it'd be really tough to figure out what happened after a crash like that. Besides, it sounds insane.” He sighs. “I probably got distracted?” He doesn't sound like he believes it completely.

Both of them startle as Jared's beeper goes off.

“Uh oh,” Jared says, looking at it. “Sorry, I didn't realize – . Gotta go.”

“Of course,” Jensen says. “Sorry to take up so much of your time. Thanks for listening.”

“Any time,” Jared says. “And don't stress. You'll be back out there wowing 'em again by spring.”

He's in a good mood for the rest of the day, difficult clinic notwithstanding. It's not until he's eating his second burrito later that evening that he realizes: he's in trouble.

That wasn't just therapeutic.

The human side of medicine is all too easily lost these days. Between the increasingly sophisticated technology and the ever-more-complex paperwork, it's harder to find the time to just sit down with a patient. To talk and most importantly listen: to their fears, their grief, their expectations. It's a vital part of being a healer, though, instead of just a surgical technician or a diagnostic computer. Jared never wants to lose that.

But while he cares about all his patients, what he's beginning to feel for Jensen is very, very different.

This isn't just a physical crush. This is actual feelings.

_Shit._

Physical attraction passes, and you can't help what fires you up. He feels a bit ashamed for getting turned on by Jensen when the guy was in a coma, but he'd defy anyone to see Jensen nearly naked, no matter the circumstances, and not at least notice what a great body the guy has. He's had physical crushes before, on both men and women: brief affairs that had him panting with lust, which then passed as quickly as it came.

Feelings, though. That's a whole other kettle of fish. That's harder to ignore, and much more his own fault for letting them develop.

He goes for a run that evening to clear his head, but it doesn't help. Neither does spending the weekend helping Gen paint her apartment. He'd promised to, but he could do with not being around her right now. She knows him too well.

He's so relieved when she doesn't ask what's up with him that he doesn't realize until much later that she probably has a very good idea.

 

 

 

On Monday, he forces himself to leave Jensen's room until last.

He goes to check on Mrs. Giacomantonio’s cast. There’s a mammoth fruit basket on her bedside table. The tag on it reads, “We miss you! Come home soon! Love from Socks and Tibbles.”

“It’s not really from the cats,” she confides. “I suspect my daughters.”

Jared smiles. “It’s good to know you have a supportive family. Will they be around to help you when you get home?”

“My eldest is taking a week off. She was going to stay longer but I told her I could manage, she needs to get back to her kids.” Mrs. Giacomantonio looks at him speculatively. “Angie, now – the younger one – she might come up after that. She’s a lawyer. Works too hard, but she hasn’t got a husband or kids to miss her.” Jared can practically hear the wheels turning. “It’s a real shame; she’s a lovely girl. I keep telling her it’s time she settled down but she just says she hasn’t met the right person yet. You must understand how it is, being so busy yourself. Are you married?”

Mrs. Giacomantonio is practically batting her eyelashes at him. Jared gives her a smaller, cooler smile and ignores the question. “I’m just going to check the pulses in your feet.” He turns and bends over the end of the bed, tugging the carefully folded sheets out of place. Everything looks good. “Can you wiggle your toes?”

The toes can wiggle just fine. Jared nods and straightens up. “Looks good. Physio will be by to see you later today, and we’ll start getting you up and moving. You should be home by the end of the week.”

“Oh, lovely!” Mrs. Giacomantonio beams. “You’ve been wonderful, Doctor, and you make great scenery, but you aren’t here nearly often enough and the kitties are missing me. Do you like grapefruit?”

Jared blinks at the non sequitur. “Uh. Yes?”

“I hate it.” She reaches over and tugs on the huge yellow bow adorning her gift basket. Jared flinches at the squeaking of the cellophane. “Here. You take them.”

“Oh no, Mrs. Giacomantonio,” Jared demurs. “That's really kind of you, but I can't take your –”

“I told you, I detest them. They'll go to waste otherwise.” She holds out two enormous pink grapefruit. “Consider it my contribution to keeping you healthy, for a change. Get your Vitamin C.”

She winks at him. “I'd offer you an apple, too, but I don't want you to stay away, Doctor!”

Jared smiles awkwardly and takes the proffered grapefruit, tucking one in each lab coat pocket. “Thanks. It's very nice of you. And don't worry, I'll be checking in on you every day.”

“Excellent,” she beams. “I do hope Angie gets to meet my wonderful young doctor.”

Jared flees.

Most of the rest of the ward round is routine. He reviews a couple of X-rays, adjusts someone's insulin dose, and reassures a worried daughter that her dad's coming along as expected.

He finds his steps quickening as he approaches the last room, and forces himself to slow down. This is lucky, because as he walks in the door he nearly collides with a Jensen on crutches who is coming through it.

“Sorry!” he yelps, jumping back.

“Dr. Jared!” Jensen grins. “Look what Kelly got for me!”

Kelly, the newest physiotherapist to join the ward, is standing in the room looking a little nervous. “Dr. Padalecki! I was fitting Mr. Ackles for them...”

“Jensen,” Jensen interrupts. “Please quit calling me Mr. Ackles. That's my dad's name.”

She blushes. “I was fitting Jensen for them, and he decided to give them a try. I know he's not ordered for mobilizing yet...”

She's biting her lip now, clearly afraid Jared's going to chew her out. Jensen's activity order hasn't been changed, which means technically he's still to mobilize in the wheelchair only, but Jared isn't in the habit of yelling at staff for the decisions of patients.

Besides, from what he can see, Jensen isn't actually taking any weight on his injured leg. Jared gives silent thanks that he has a VIP who actually listens to him.

“Looks like they fit well,” he says. “Nice job, Kelly.”

She blushes still more, ears going red, and looks surprised and relieved.

He turns his attention back to Jensen. “And it looks like you know how to use them?”

Jensen waves one crutch in a complicated flourish, left foot still hovering a couple of inches off the floor. “It's not rocket science. And I've injured things before.”

He's putting on a brave face, but Jared notes the sweat on his forehead. It might just be from pain and exertion, but a week or two post-op, it's important to rule out infection.

“Can you maneouver yourself back to the bed?” he says. “I'd like to check the incision one more time before you start stressing it.”

Jensen raises his eyebrows, but doesn't argue, just smoothly pivots and starts making his way back across the short distance to the bed.

“Nice,” Jared says. “Kelly, would you mind finding his nurse? I'd like to know the latest white count.”

“No problem,” she says. “Mr. Ackles – Jensen – I'll be back later to adjust things once you've had a chance to see how they feel for you.” She slips out, pulling the door to behind her.

Jensen collapses on the mattress. “You know, this is pretty comfortable. I thought people usually complained about hospital beds.”

“Around here, it's mostly the food we get complaints about,” Jared says. “Or the color of the walls. Can you swing your legs up and lie back?”

Jensen does so. Jared sits on the edge of the bed beside Jensen's left leg, pulls up the leg of the loose sweat pants he's wearing and removes the bandage. The wound's a little red around the edges, but no more so than he'd expect from normal healing, and there's no pus.

“Looks all right,” he says. “You're cleared for action.”

He looks up, hands still resting on the skin just below Jensen's knee, and his breath catches in his chest at the look Jensen is giving him. It is not at all the kind of look a patient has ever given him before, even one who's happy or relieved by the news Jared's telling them.

If he didn't know better, he'd say it was a look of almost predatory interest.

“Wow,” Jensen says. “This day just keeps getting better. First I get to walk, for the first time in over a week, and next thing I know a hot guy is ordering me into bed and telling me it's time for action.”

Jared is struck dumb by the sheer unexpectedness of this, as well as by his immediate lustful reaction, and stammers out something that's a mix of denial and professional distance. He leaps to his feet, and Jensen lets out a yelp, because Jared's just dropped a heavy grapefruit on his leg, which ordinarily wouldn't be enough to bother someone but directly on a fresh surgical wound it's kind of painful.

“Um,” he says, covered in confusion. “Jesus. I'm sorry.”

Jensen looks at the grapefruit in the bed, and then at the bulge in Jared's other lab coat pocket. “Is that a grapefruit in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”

Jared summons his professional face, gives Jensen a quelling look, and tries to look as dignified as he can while retrieving the grapefruit from the bed. “Mr. Ackles, I –”

“Jensen.”

“Mr. Ackles,” Jared repeats, “I'm glad you're feeling well enough to get up and around. I think we can probably reduce your morphine dose now. Hopefully that will also cut down on any side effects.”

He leaves the room, goes to his office, and quietly panics.

It's bad enough to have a crush on a patient. It's worse to be developing actual feelings for one. But it's super bad, and actually scary, to have that same patient start coming onto him.

Plus, what the hell? Jensen's got a girlfriend. Jared's personally familiar with the concept of being attracted to either gender, but Jensen hadn't seemed like the type to play around behind his partner's back.

 _He's a VIP,_ Jared's brain reminds him. _Usual rules don't apply. You thought he was different, but you were just fooling yourself._

He's going to have to keep it together, keep it strictly professional, and get Jensen out of hospital as soon as possible. Hopefully, realizing that Jensen's a callous, would-be cheating jerk will make it easier to ignore how lickable he is.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, now that Jared's lizard brain knows that Jensen is apparently interested in men, and possibly even in him, it decides to torment Jared with decidedly unprofessional images at random times.

Like the morning Jared awakes from a particularly graphic dream about Jensen, his cock insanely hard and leaking in his boxers. The past few weeks have taught him that cold showers aren't going to cut it, at least not for long; he doesn't want to spend yet another day walking around half-hard, distracted and cranky.

He'll just have to get it over with. Jerk off thinking about something else, something as un-Jensen as possible.

He slides a hand down into his boxers. His shaft is already slick with pre-come, moving easily through his grip; more blurts from his slit as he thumbs over the taut, swollen head. He starts fucking hard into his fist, trying to picture a woman riding him, breasts jiggling in time with his thrusts, but his brain keeps reverting to the images still vivid from his dream. The predatory look Jensen had given him, the way he licked his lips.

He groans as his balls draw up tight, cock throbbing and pulsing in his grip. It's been years since his teenage wet dreams, but he'd been damn near the edge of orgasm when he woke up.

_It's just fantasy. It's not real. Just this once can't hurt._

He pictures the stubble on Jensen's cheeks, the spray of freckles, and imagines how Jensen would look with those full lips parted and eyes wide as Jared came on his face.

His cock explodes like a geyser, blowing a massive load all over his chest and belly. He comes more and harder than he has in months, and even when his balls are wrung dry he keeps spasming with aftershock.

 _That's that,_ he tells his dick sternly, once he catches his breath. _You've had your fun, and it's done. No more._ It's a relief, honestly, to have gotten it out of his system.

The depth of his self-deception becomes apparent when he walks onto the ward a couple of hours later, and the first thing he sees is the subject of his masturbatory fantasies slowly levering his way down the hall on crutches. He can't tear his eyes away from the muscles flexing in Jensen's forearms, and his dick's half-hard within seconds.

He tries to will it down, but spares a quick glance to check his lab coat is buttoned, shielding him from any potential embarrassment. At least now Jensen's out of the wheelchair, his face is no longer at crotch level.

“Are you supposed to be doing that all by yourself?” he says, in mock sternness. He's pretty sure Jensen wouldn't have gotten up without permission – he's been unexpectedly compliant for a spoiled celebrity – but there's no physiotherapist in sight.

“I wouldn't screw up your good work.” Jensen grins. “Someone named Tracey cleared me to do a couple of laps, as long as I use the crutches.”

“Make sure you're not pushing it,” Jared warns. “And don't put any weight on that left foot. If your arms are getting tired, stop.”

Jensen nods. “Yeah, I know. She was very thorough in her instructions. I think she's scared of you.”

Jared outright laughs. Tracey is the senior physio on the ward, scared of nobody and nothing. She wouldn't hesitate to lecture any of them, even Dr. Beaver, if she thought they were interfering with her patient care plans.

“Hardly,” he says. “But she knows what she's talking about. Listen to her and you'll do fine.”

 

 

Now that Jensen's mobile, it's harder to control when and where Jared runs into him. Jared's grabbing a quick, late lunch in the cafeteria a couple of days later – morning clinic had run extra long, and he has to lecture a group of med students at two-thirty – when Jensen appears at his table. He's doing an impressive job of managing a travel mug of coffee and crutches at the same time.

He asks if he can sit, and Jared can't politely say no, even though he knows this isn't sensible, he needs to cut down on exposure. His mouth is full so he just nods, gesturing with his head at the seat across from him.

He reminds himself that Jensen will be going home tomorrow or the next day. He's almost out of the woods. It will be easy to forget him when he's not there all the time.

“Sorry to bug you,” Jensen says, settling carefully into the chair with his left leg stretched out and leaning his crutches against the table. “I know you've been busy.”

Jared finishes chewing and swallowing. “Yeah, sorry I haven't been able to spend any time. Though really, you and Tracey are doing all the work now.”

“I think she's given me every one of her lectures at this point,” Jensen says. “Some of them two or three times. When can I go home?”

Jared shrugs. “I'm just waiting for her to clear you.”

“She's given me the green light. I think she's going to call you later.”

“Great! That's good news.”

“Glad to get rid of me?” Jensen teases.

“I'm glad you're sufficiently recovered to be discharged,” Jared corrects him, formal tone tempered by the hint of a smile. “It's been a pleasure having you. Not what –” he breaks off, smiling to himself as he remembers his worries about his celebrity patient.

“Spit it out.” Jensen looks amused.

“You're not what I expected,” Jared says, honestly. “We get VIPs here once in a while. Not like the Mayo Clinic or the Barrow, of course, but we see our share. Mostly emergencies. And frankly, they're usually pretty awful to deal with.”

Jensen grimaces. “I can imagine.” His lips quirk up in a wry grin. “Thank your stars you weren't dealing with Danni instead.”

Jared splutters into his coffee. “Oh, I'm sure that she'd...”

“Sorry, I was teasing,” Jensen says. “She'd be okay, actually. I know she can be determined, and she doesn't like taking no for an answer, but she listens to reason. She'd follow doctor's orders.”

“I don't have a problem with people asking questions,” Jared says. “Even as many as Ms. Harris. People should understand what's being done to them and why. I think they're more likely to follow advice when they understand the reasons for it.”

He pauses for a sip of coffee. “Some people are a little more aggressive about it. I don't like feeling I'm on trial, like I have to justify everything. But usually that's because they're scared, or they feel like they're losing control, and it's their way of dealing with situations like that: bullying anyone around them. I get that, and I can deal with it. And usually, they end up apologizing. To me, at least.

The real dicks, though, are the ones who bully the nursing staff. The therapists. The ward clerk. Even the residents. They don't usually go after the attending doctor – they'll suck up, in fact, trying to get special treatment – but they're horrible to the rest of the team. They think they can get away with anything because they're rich and famous and better than the people who save their life and wipe their ass. And that type never apologize.”

Jensen listens quietly and bites his lip. He makes a veiled apology for how he's been around Jared, without actually saying out loud that he'd been hitting on Jared.

Jared relaxes. He was right. It was just the drugs, and Jensen's thankfulness that he wasn't dead and was going to be able to walk. Misplaced affection towards Jared as the one who fixed him.

They'll be moving in the right direction now. Going their separate ways, and being doctor and patient. He'll still have to see Jensen in follow-up every few weeks for another few months, but it'll be much easier to play their roles when they aren't around each other so much.

When there aren't opportunities for them to talk, as if they're friends, and realize how easy they can be with one another.

 

 

 

He spends a couple of hours teaching the medical students how to examine the ligaments of the knee, and swings by the ICU afterwards, to check up on his most recent admission.

The team's almost finished their late afternoon rounds. Aldis, the ICU attending, waves him over. “Hey, Jared! How's your celebrity doing?”

Jared smiles. “Pretty great, actually.”

“Yeah?” Aldis raises his eyebrows. “Your nurses haven't quit en masse?”

“Nope.” Jared shakes his head. “He's a nice guy. Hasn't given them any hassle at all.”

“Huh.”

“I did bring the ward clerk flowers,” Jared says. “The phone rang off the hook for the first few days, and she's still fending off the occasional reporter. We're discharging him tomorrow, and it'll probably be a madhouse. I've tried to keep it quiet but they always find out somehow.”

He keeps chatting with Aldis while the ICU resident writes a note on the chart of the patient in the next bed. Suddenly, there's a loud beeping and a voice announces from the pager clipped to her scrubs, “Code Blue, Tower One. Code Blue, Tower One.”

She jumps to her feet, abandoning her note-writing, and hastily gathers her stethoscope and keys from the table before starting to run. Before she's six feet away, though, the pager squawks again, “Code Blue, Tower One, sixth floor, room 6124. Code Blue...”

Jared's running right along beside her, and leaves her behind as he races up the stairs two at a time.

He shoves through the press of people surrounding Mrs. Giacomantonio's bed and hanging around the doorway in case they're needed to run bloodwork, fetch drugs or write things down.

She looks so different from the woman he was chatting with only this morning. Laid out flat, one arm sagging off the side of the bed, hospital gown tugged down to her waist as someone slaps adhesive pads on her naked chest. Her other arm is being held by a nurse inserting a large-bore IV. Someone else – Chad, their ward RT – is almost lifting her head off the mattress with the laryngoscope as he squints down her throat and slides a tube into her lungs.

“Tube size 7.5,” Chad calls, and a nurse standing by the crash cart writes it down. He connects the oxygen. “Easy to bag. You got a pulse yet?”

“Still nothing,” Osric says, two fingers on the carotid. “Resuming CPR.”

He's lacing his hands and placing them back on Mrs. Giacomantonio's sternum – where, Jared sees with a shock, there's already bruising from compressions – but Jared pushes forward and elbows him out of the way.

“I'll take over,” he says. “Get a blood gas.”

“Should we shock?” says the nurse hooking up the leads to the sticky pads. “Defibrillator charged and ready.”

“No,” Jared says. His hands are busy compressing; he gestures with his head at the ECG trace on the cart monitor. “She's got sinus rhythm running. Looks like pulseless electrical activity.”

“Where the hell's the rest of the team?” Chad grumbles. He's using one hand to continue pushing air into her lungs at a regular rhythm, and leans forward to place the fingers of his other hand against the carotid. “Kid! Get the epi.”

Osric, who's busy trying to stick a needle in the femoral artery, jumps. “I'm...” He frantically looks around and waves to one of the hovering staff, who darts forward. “Here, take over on the blood gas.” Someone hands him a pre-filled syringe and he scoots around the bed to get at the IV.

“What happened?” Jared says. His arms move up and down, punching her chest in, compressing the heart. He's not thinking about how her ribs feel beneath his hands, bending and cracking under the force.

“Epinephrine 1 milligram IV push,” Osric calls. It gets duly written down. Jared and Osric stare at the monitor from opposite sides of the bed. Jared's arms still move mechanically.

“Found down,” Chad says. “I was just up the hall when I heard the yelling. I'm not getting a pulse here. You pushing hard enough?”

The ICU resident slides into the room. Martin's right behind her; he must be the anesthesiologist leading the code team today.

“I'm pushing hard enough to break something,” Jared says curtly.

“PE?” Martin says. He moves to the head of the bed and checks the tube.

“Probably,” Jared says grimly. No pulse during CPR is a very bad sign: it means the most likely explanation is a pulmonary embolism, a massive blood clot in the main artery of the lungs.

It means that no matter what they do, they are unlikely to get her back.

“I came in with her dinner tray and found her unconscious,” the woman writing things down says. “She was fine this morning, vitals stable, no complaints.”

“Stop for a moment,” Martin says, placing his stethoscope on her chest. “Good air entry. Nice tube position.”

“Thanks,” Chad says.

“Do we have a blood gas?” the ICU resident says. “That's – is that heart block?”

“Still no pulse,” Osric says worriedly. “I sent the blood gas.”

“It only just went down,” says someone near the door. “X-ray's here.”

“We don't need it right now,” Martin says. “Tell them to stay though. Outside the door.”

“Resuming CPR,” Jared says, doing so. “Give some vasopressin. What about fibrinolytic?”

“Not systemically. And not if we can't even get her to the scanner.” Martin puts his fingers on the carotid. “Still not feeling it. What's her story?”

“Seventy years old...”

_press_

“...no cardiac history...”

_press_

“...tibial fracture...”

_press_

“...casted almost two weeks ago.”

_press_

“We got her up and weight-bearing...”

_press_

“...with a walker this week.”

_press_

“Vasopressin forty units IV push!” Osric says loudly.

“I was gonna send her _home._ ” Jared's last thrust has more force behind it and he both feels and hears it. The crunch. He's broken her sternum.

“Stop,” Martin says gently. “Anything?”

“Still no pulse.”

“That's a shockable rhythm!” The ICU resident turns from the monitor and grabs the defibrillator paddles. “Look, it's VT now. Back up, people!”

Jared steps back and she positions one of the paddles where his hands had been, trying to crush life _into_ someone. Osric shifts the left arm away from the body so she can place the other along the side of the chest, then lets go and also steps back.

She looks around to ensure everyone's out of the way. “First shock, 200 joules. Clear!”

Mrs. Giacomantonio's body jumps as the voltage races through it. The resident lifts the paddles. Everyone stares at the monitor.

“Still VT,” Martin says. “Epi. Resume.”

“Epinephrine 1milligram IV push,” Osric says, as Jared moves in again and positions his hands above the spreading bruise. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Take a break,” Martin says quietly, and slides in beside him, nudging Jared's hands out of the way. “It gets tiring. Give your arms a rest.”

Jared's arms don't hurt. It's his heart.

He steps back and watches the team flow, cluster, call instructions. Five cycles of CPR. Rhythm and pulse check. Still nothing.

“Second shock, 300 joules. Clear!”

More epinephrine, more CPR. Somebody takes over the ventilation from Chad, whose hands are cramping. The blood gas results are called in.

“Metabolic acidosis with a pH of 6.9,” Martin says. “This has got to be a PE. What's the rhythm now?”

A third shock. More drugs.

“Shall I get the amiodarone?” the ICU resident says.

Martin considers, still compressing. The line trailing across the monitor is barely a rhythm at all. It might be ventricular fibrillation, if you were feeling hopeful. For a given, extraordinarily limited and warped value of hopeful.

“Jared...” he says, turning.

“I know.”

“Amiodarone won't help with this,” Martin says. “And it's been too long. We haven't actually had blood circulating.”

“I know.”

The ICU resident opens her mouth, then closes it again, folding her lips inside. Her shoulders slump. She nods.

“Calling it.” Martin looks at the clock. “Time of death, 5:44.”

The room is so much quieter than before. People move more slowly, with small, contained, polite motions, even though nothing they do is going to bother Maria Giacomantonio now.

A nurse begins clearing up the debris of resuscitation that litter the bed – blood-stained gauze swabs, wrappers from pre-filled drug syringes, stray discarded IV connectors – while two more straighten Mrs. Giacomantonio's limbs, peel the sticky pads from her chest, and reposition her hospital gown to cover her appropriately. The one who was recording everything turns to the defibrillator and tears off the long ribbon of paper that it's been spitting out, which documents the last, futile electrical efforts of her heart.

Jared can't stand to be in the room any longer.

He walks out and sits down heavily on the bench in the corridor, staring blankly at the far wall. Someone sits down beside him.

It's Jensen, who has left his room and made his way down here unaccompanied on his crutches.

“You shouldn't be here,” Jared tells him.

Jensen shrugs. “I know.”

“Seriously. You should have stayed in your room.”

Jensen lowers himself into the chair beside Jared. “I know. I wanted to...” He clears his throat. “It wasn't morbid curiosity. I saw you running. I guess I wanted to make sure you're okay.”

Jared just shrugs again.

“I'm sorry,” Jensen says. “I gather it didn't go well.”

“No.”

Jared is suddenly, enormously tired. He's tired, and numb, and just wants to go home and sleep. You can't win them all, but it's one thing to lose a patient you expected to lose. This is something else entirely.

“You're a good doctor.”

Jared makes a 'hmph' sound. He doesn't feel like it today. Logically, he knows there was nothing he could have done differently that would have prevented this, or altered the outcome, but that doesn't change what happened.

“Really. You're a great doctor,” Jensen says quietly. “Everyone says so. All the nurses, the physios. People who know what they're talking about. It's not your fault.”

Jared appreciates the kindness, he really does. He wants to respond, but he's just so tired and there aren't any words. He can't even manage a smile, or a head shake.

Jensen's hand lifts, hesitates, then settles warm and firm on Jared's shoulder.

Jared knows he should break away, kindly but firmly. He shouldn't allow himself to have this. But he's hurting and weak and the comfort is so very much what he needs right now, and he just sits there and lets Jensen rub his back as the morgue attendants come and wheel Mrs. Giacomantonio away.

 


	4. SPN J2 AU Fic: Zero to Sixty (4/4)

  
“We'll see you in the clinic next week, with X-rays.” Jared looks back over his shoulder as he says this, to ensure Osric is writing it down in the chart. “Don't overdo it.”

Jensen just grins.

“I mean it.” Jared folds his arms and does his best to give Jensen a stern glare. “I know it's tough waiting, but you need to give it the time now to heal properly. If you push too hard, it'll just set you back. Maybe even leave you with permanent problems.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jensen's face turns serious. “I really appreciate all you've done for me. You and your team. I'll be good.”

“That'll be the day,” Danneel says, walking into the room. Jared tries not to do a double-take. She's far more dressed up than he's ever seen her, hair and make-up impeccable, wearing shoes that look like a work of modern art and put her almost face to face with Jared.

 _Photos,_ he realizes. The crowds will be out there, waiting to capture Jensen Ackles leaving hospital, in a wheelchair pushed by his devoted girlfriend.

“You're going in the chair,” Danneel says. “This is not up for debate. You just finished telling Dr. Padalecki how you were going to obey all his instructions, remember?”

“He did,” Jared confirms. “He promised. Pinky swore, even.”

“Traitor,” Jensen mutters.

“Are there discharge papers?” Danneel asks.

“At the nursing station,” Jared says. “Dr. Chau will get them for you.”

Osric hurries to show her the way, and Jared turns back to Jensen.

“It's your leg,” he says. “Don't be an idiot.”

“I won't.” Jensen licks his lips, and Jared realizes he looks nervous. It's almost funny, after he's been practically climbing the walls to get out of here.

“Don't worry,” he says. “I wouldn't be discharging you if I didn't think you were ready.”

“It's not that,” Jensen says. He bites his lip. “I, uh. I wondered if you – I don't suppose you'd like to go out to dinner sometime? With me?”

“What about Danneel?” Jared blurts out, and reddens. Danneel is not the most important issue here.

“Not a problem.” Jensen's blushing too, the tips of his ears going pink, but he's looking more confident. “Dating a car model's kind of expected. But we're not an item.”

“Uh...” says Jared, “I'm pretty sure you're an item. I think you're, like, the definition of an item. Since you've been a couple for over a year in all the gossip mags and stuff.”

“Fine, but we're not _actually_ an item.” Jensen says. “Danneel will not object if I take you to dinner. Danneel will not object if I fuck your brains out.”

Jared nearly swallows his tongue.

“Although she might ask to watch,” Jensen adds.

“Jesus,” Jared chokes out. He's nearly hyperventilating. This shouldn't be happening. This _can't_ happen. No matter how much he wants it to.

“I can't,” he says. “I can't go out with you. You're a patient.”

Jensen eyes him closely. “You're not saying you don't want to.”

“I don't!” Jared insists. “It would be totally unethical. I'd probably lose my job. And my medical license.”

“We could skip the sex for now,” Jensen says. “I'll settle for dinner.”

Jared's struggling for words to get out of this, but then there's a click of heels outside the door and Danneel walks back in.

“Want to come down to the front door with us?” she says, smiling at Jared. “You can get in some photos. We might even make the front page.”

“No, thanks,” Jared manages. He prays his face isn't giving anything away. He needs to not be around Jensen. He needs to not think impossible things. “I'd rather not be famous by association.”

“You mean you don't want to get mobbed every time you venture outside the hospital?” Jensen says wryly. “See, that's why you're a doctor. You're a smart man.”

“Which is why you're going to listen to his advice,” Danneel says, moving around behind Jensen. “Right?”

“Most of it,” Jensen says, and he winks at Jared. “You know me. I can't help pushing the limits.”

“The limits are there for a reason.” Jared doesn't smile, and lets his glance fall only briefly on Jensen before moving on to Danneel. “Good luck. We'll see you in next week.”

One week. He hopes that's enough to get himself under control. Maybe he could just have the residents see Jensen.

“Well,” Maggie says to Jared as he passes her desk, “that was a real pleasure. After those first few days of reporters, he didn't bring us any trouble at all.”

Jared almost laughs out loud at the irony. Jensen is exactly the worst kind of trouble, one Jared never imagined he'd be in.

 

 

 

Wednesday morning is fracture clinic: quick appointments, X-ray after X-ray of broken ankles and wrists and femurs, cast checks, cast removals. It's bread-and-butter learning for the residents. Some attendings find it boring, but Jared enjoys it. He likes the opportunities for practical, on-the-spot teaching, and he genuinely likes the people.

He's in a particularly good mood this week, and can't even manage to pretend to himself that it's for any other reason than Jensen being scheduled for a recheck today. Ward rounds haven't seemed nearly as interesting since Jensen left.

They've booked him as the first patient of the morning, before the regular clinic starts. Jensen isn't the type to demand that, but Jared doesn't want him being mobbed by a bunch of other patients asking for autographs. First thing in the morning, it's less likely Jensen will have to spend much time in the waiting room, and there won't be many patients there. Jared tries to run his clinic on time, and he's usually not too bad, but sometimes a patient unexpectedly needs more time. Little things – pages from the ward, phone calls from referring doctors, computers being slow to load the X-ray images – can combine and slow a day down dramatically. He doesn't like making anybody wait, but most people wouldn't have complete strangers coming up to them in the waiting room and asking if they can take their picture with them.

Of course, it hadn't occurred to Jared that the resident assigned to his clinic that morning wouldn't know to show up early. He'd been relying on having someone else in the room with them. He briefly considers asking the clinic nurse to chaperone him – they often do that with female patients – but that would seem weird. He steels himself and heads in. It's a five minute check, he does this all the time.

“Good morning,” he says. “The X-rays look fine. Can you have a seat up here? I'm just going to test your strength.”

It's coming along nicely too. He can't help a small smile of satisfaction at his work.

“It's amazing, what you do.” Jensen looks down at his legs, swinging from the examination table. “Fixing people. Saving lives.”

“It’s just carpentry,” Jared says. “Line up the bits and nail ‘em back together. As long as you can sight a straight line, you’re good.”

“Not so good at the whole straight thing,” Jensen says, and Jared’s face flames.

He’s had his hands in this man’s body. They have a relationship: a unique, awkwardly intimate, doctor-patient relationship. They can't have the type of relationship Jensen's asking for.

He ignores Jensen's innuendo, hands him a prescription refill and gives him his instructions in a cool tone, and waves him out the door with a noncommittal smile.

On the clinic sheet, he marks down “Return 2 weeks, resident to see.” He'll see Jensen too, of course, but he's not doing it alone again.

He's still unsettled through the next couple of appointments, but the familiar work occupies his mind and hands and by lunch time, he's pushed it out of his mind. Lunch today is a sandwich at his desk, catching up on the overflowing pile of paperwork on his desk. He takes a very quick flip through the various magazines and communiques in his inbox before tossing them in the recycling bin.

Among them is a letter from his professional medical defence organization, reminding him to pay his annual dues. He recalls reading the various illustration cases in their newsletters, which outlined various lawsuits that had been either dismissed or settled, and cringing at some of the more egregious malpractice.

Like having sex with a patient.

 _A few more months._ That's all he has to get through, and Jensen will be out of his life.

 

 

 

The next few clinic visits pass without incident. Osric, mortified at having missed Jensen's last appointment, makes sure to show up even when he wasn't officially assigned to clinic. Having put the screws in, he's got a sense of ownership, and beams with pride when Jared compliments the X-rays. Jensen smiles and jokes, asks appropriate questions, and there's no awkwardness at all.

So Jared's guard is down when he walks into Jensen's room to tell him that now, after a couple of months, he can ditch the crutches.

“Awesome,” Jensen says, grinning.

“You should use a cane at first,” Jared cautions. “If you wait here, we'll get them to bring one from stores.”

“I'll go get it!” Osric volunteers, and dashes out of the room before Jared can react. The door slams shut in the wake of his enthusiasm.

Jensen hops down from the examination table.

“Alone at last,” he says, sitting down in a chair and starting to pull on his socks. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”

“It's a resident clinic,” Jared says, eyeing the door and wondering if he should make a break for it too. “Learning to operate isn't enough. It's important for them to see the follow-up.”

“Follow through's important.” Jensen finishes tying his shoes and leans back in his chair, fixing Jared with a knowing stare. “So. How about that dinner?”

“No,” Jared says flatly.

“We could skip the dinner.” This is escalating way too fast. Jared backs towards the door. “Fast forward to the bit where _I_ get to see _you_ naked.”

“Stop,” Jared grits out. “You need to stop this, Jensen. This isn't going to happen.”

“You can't tell me you don't want it.” Jensen's voice is low and burning with heat. “I'm not an idiot, Jared. I've seen you looking. I don't get why you're holding back.”

“I _can't,_ ” he says, and he can hear the longing in his voice, knows Jensen must hear it too. “I do want it. God, I want it.”

He licks his dry lips, watches Jensen's eyes track the movement.

“I can't,” he says again. “You're my patient. It's not okay.”

“Even if I want it too?” Jensen moves toward him, and Jared hastily steps away again. “Even if,” Jensen pauses and locks eyes with Jared, gaze scorching, “I get on my knees and beg?”

Jared almost whimpers at that. His dick is hard, painful against the zipper of his suit pants, but it's less distressing than the ache in his chest.

“The guidelines still say no,” he says. “I'm in a position of authority. A relationship between us – it's a power imbalance.”

“Power imbalance?” Jensen says, and Jared's amazed to hear laughter in his voice. “Seriously.”

“Um. Yeah?” Jared sure as hell doesn't feel like the one with the power at this point, but he remembers the language from the lectures. “It's like an unconscious thing. People are expected to do what doctors say – the whole 'doctors orders' thing. You can't really give independent consent. I could be taking advantage of you.”

Jensen moves so swiftly Jared has no warning, stepping up until their chests are almost touching. Jared's back is against the clinic room door. He can't retreat any further.

“Dude, I’m _Jensen Ackles,_ ” says Jensen, and Jared nearly cracks up in nervous laughter at that because he’s wound so tight and really, the guy thinks he’s all that? But Jensen’s moving even closer, bracing himself with one hand against the door beside Jared's head, bringing his other hand up to cradle Jared's jaw in a gentle but firm grip. Jared can't breathe, can’t look away from the green eyes burning into him. “You wanna talk about power? Women line up around the block to fuck me. Men line up to fuck me _and_ my car. I could have anybody I goddamn want to, but I want you, and if you think some stupid medical degree is gonna get you out of sucking my cock you’ve got another think coming.”

Jared’s brain is doing its level best to process the words coming in his ears but Jensen’s hand has moved down to the small of his back, just stroking the curve of Jared’s ass, and the sensations are short-circuiting Jared completely. He wouldn’t be surprised if steam came out his ears, physiology be damned.

“Not fair,” he manages. “Please, Jensen. I thought you were different.”

Jensen freezes. His hand stills, then drops. He backs away from Jared.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I shouldn't have pushed so hard.”

“It's okay.” Jared moves out from between Jensen and the door, putting some distance between them. “I'm sorry if I've been giving you mixed messages. You're a great guy, and if things were different – but they aren't. I can't date you. And,” he gulps, “I really need you to stop asking. Because I'm having trouble holding on to what's right here.”

Jensen shoves both hands into his hair in evident frustration. “How is this not right? I'm sorry I was a dick just now, but my point was, I am not worried that somehow you're intimidating me into a sexual relationship.”

He walks back to his chair and collapses into it. “And I can't imagine that anyone looking at this from the outside would think so either. If it got out that we were a couple, who do you think they'd be congratulating? Me, for landing a doctor? Or you, for landing –”

The door bursts open.

“Sorry it took so long!” Osric says. “It took a while to find the right size.”

“No problem,” Jared reassures him. “It gave us time to finish our discussion.” He turns to Jensen. “We're finished. Right?”

Jensen nods, but there's a determined glint in his eye. “I think I've learned what I need for today. But I'll probably have more questions next time.”

“I'm sure Dr. Chau will be around to answer them,” Jared says, and walks out.

 

 

 

As it happens, the next time they meet, Osric isn't around. None of the hospital staff are, in fact.

He almost doesn't recognize Jensen, what with the sunglasses and ball hat. He's taking his neighbor Kristen's dog for a run in their local dog park – she'd worked the night shift, and he needed some exercise – when he unexpectedly runs into Jensen.

The small ball of fluff that Jensen has with him is even more unexpected. Jared hadn't thought about whether Jensen owned a dog, or what kind of dog he might own if he did. But he's pretty sure he wouldn't have predicted...that.

On the plus side, it's hardly likely to pull Jensen off balance or put any undue stress on his leg. Unless it needs to be carried home.

“He's a cute little thing,” Jared says.

“He's little, all right.” Jensen removes his sunglasses and eyes the miniscule pooch. “He's Danni's dog.” He pauses. “I like bigger ones, myself.”

“Me too,” Jared agrees. “One that can keep up with me when I'm running.”

“This one's about my speed right now,” Jensen says ruefully. “I'll have to work my way up to yours.”

“He's not mine,” Jared explains. “I'm just borrowing him. I don't have the time to give a dog proper attention right now. My schedule's pretty hectic at times. And I don't have a yard.”

“Well, it's good to see that you get a break once in a while,” Jensen says. “I really needed some space today. Mentally, I mean.”

“Everything okay?”

Jensen shrugs. “I needed to get away from people for a bit. I'm sure they all mean well, but it's suffocating at times.”

“I can imagine. They've been worried about you.”

Jensen rolls his eyes. “I'm fine. I don't need to be wrapped in cotton wool and fussed over.”

Jared smiles. “No. I'm glad to see you getting out and doing some walking.”

He looks down to where the dog is straining against the leash wrapped around his hand. “I better keep moving. I'll leave you to your space.”

“You could stay and talk,” Jensen says. “Let him off leash for a while. I don't mind you being around.”

Jared swallows. “I know. But – ”

“But you can't,” Jensen says, resignation and anger mixing in his tone. He replaces his sunglasses, hiding his eyes. “Yeah. Have a good run.”

 

 

 

Jensen's X-rays look fantastic. His leg looks good too: incisions healed, muscle strength normal, excellent range of motion. Jared should be thrilled.

He is, of course, for Jensen's sake. But this means today is going to be Jensen's final clinic visit.

“Are you going to take the screws out?”

“Nope,” Jared says. “Not unless they start bothering you. They aren't needed any more, your bone's strong enough, but there's no point in opening things up again if we don't have to.”

“Am I going to set off airport metal detectors?” Jensen makes a mock horrified face. “Will I get strip-searched every time I travel now?”

Jared heroically keeps his mind on orthopedic topics and tries to keep his face bland. “They're titanium. Nonmagnetic.”

“That's a relief,” Jensen says. “What about having an MRI? Is it safe to have one if I need it in the future?”

“Not a problem,” Jared answers. Perversely, a tiny part of him is disappointed that Jensen didn't carry on and make some cheesy, innuendo-laden remark. He realizes that Jensen's actually been completely matter of fact on this visit, no flirting, no heated looks. It looks like he finally got the message.

Jared's glad. Of course he's glad. The sinking feeling in his chest is just a reminder that he missed breakfast this morning.

“So, basically I'm good to go? No more appointments?”

“No,” Jared says, forcing a smile himself. “I'm discharging you from follow-up today. You know where we are, of course, if you have any problems. But I really don't anticipate any. It's healed up beautifully.”

Jensen nods. “Thanks to you. And all the rest of the team, I know. But seriously. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Jared says, and does his best to keep his smile in place as he waves goodbye to Jensen Ackles forever.

 

 

 

The following day, Jensen calls Jared on his cell phone.

“How did you get this number?” Jared says.

Jensen sidesteps the question and asks him out to dinner.

“Jensen –” Jared says, frustrated. “You know I can't.”

“Actually, I don't.” He can hear the smile in Jensen's voice. “You're not my doctor. You discharged me.”

Jared's footsteps slow as his brain reels under that statement. Could it...? _No._

“It's not that simple,” he hears himself say.

“Sure it is.”

“No, it's not. I'm still your doctor, Jensen. I operated on you. You feel grateful, it's only natural, but –”

“Will you please quit insulting my intelligence and my ability to be an adult human being?” Jensen huffs into the phone. “If anyone's being inappropriate here, it's me harassing you.”

There's a pause.

“Think about it,” Jensen says. “Please. That's all I ask.”

“Okay,” Jared blurts after a long silence, and promptly hangs up in a panic.

He saves Jensen's number in his phone, realizes suddenly he's late for clinic, and suppresses freaking out for later.

 

 

 

A week and a lot of freaking out later, he's no closer to settling his internal arguments. He needs some advice.

He considers who he might talk to at work. It might be risky, but he really needs some outside but informed perspective on the situation. He eventually settles on Chris, who not only has some experience with the law, but probably won't turn him in.

Laughing at him, though, is not out of the question.

Chris, surprisingly, doesn't laugh. He proves unexpectedly wise.

“What if something happens with his leg in the future?” Jared worries the edge of his shirt.

“How often do your tibial fractures come back once you've cleared them? Ones that healed that well?”

“Almost never,” Jared admits.

Chris shrugs. “So it's pretty damn unlikely he'll have an unexpected problem down the road. If he does, there are plenty more orthopods who can deal with it. You happened to be on call when he came in – and maybe that was fate. But you've done your job, and you don't need to go on being his doctor.”

“He's got a point, you know.” Chris looks speculative. “Man's a good catch. I don't think there'd be a lot of imbalance in a relationship between you. Assuming you did your job right and his legs are the same length.”

“You're surprisingly good at this,” Jared tells him, and Chris laughs.

“Good luck,” he says. “And if it doesn't work out, come to me for the good drugs.”

 

 

 

By lunchtime that day, Jared's decided. He's going to call Jensen that evening.

As it turns out, he doesn't have to, because when he drops by his office at the end of the day, Jensen's waiting outside.

“I've been trying to give you space,” he says, “but I kind of suck at it. Can we talk?”

Jared unlocks his office door and motions them in. He pulls his chair around so he's sitting a short way apart from Jensen, instead of across from him behind the desk.

“What's up?”

“I could make life miserable for you,” Jensen says. “I could complain to the hospital directors about your work. Your attitude. Your ward. I might even be able to get you fired.”

Jared hears these words with disbelief, sudden ice water sluicing through his veins like he's on cardiopulmonary bypass or something.

His shock must be evident on his face, because Jensen looks startled, sitting up straighter. “Wait. I don't mean I'd _do_ it. Fuck. Jared. God, of course I wouldn't do that.”

It's a little late to call back the adrenaline surge now streaming through Jared's system. He takes a measured breath, willing his heart rate to settle.

“But I could.” Jensen leans in, eyes holding Jared's, gaze fierce. “I wasn't sure that was true, but I said it and you believed me. You thought I was threatening you.”

Jared doesn't nod, doesn't acknowledge. He's got no idea what's going on.

Jensen's face softens, but he doesn't break eye contact, straightforward and intense. “You still think you have all the power in this relationship?”

Jared gapes. “What?” He shoves his chair back, anger rising. “Jesus. You... are you, what, blackmailing me into going out with you?”

“No!” Jensen's eyes widen. “I don't mean... no!” He stares up at Jared; he looks genuinely upset and afraid. “God, Jared. No. I guess... I mean, I just wanted to prove to you, I don't feel – intimidated. Whatever. You keep saying you can't date me because you're in the position of power. I was trying to make the point that it could go both ways.”

Jared's pulse is still hammering. “By behaving just like all the other celebrity assholes?” A little harsh, maybe, but his emotions are a confused mess. He really thought Jensen was different.

Jensen grimaces. “I didn't intend it that way. I really didn't think you'd actually believe I meant it.”

He stands and scrubs a hand across his face. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to come across like a dick move. Shit. I've screwed up again.” He gives Jared a weak smile. “I can't think straight when it comes to you. It seemed like a good argument at the time.”

“Okay.” Jared sighs. “I'm sorry too. I should have... I mean, I know you're not like that. I guess I'm a little biased myself. About VIPs.”

Jensen looks pained. “I thought we agreed I wasn't that guy.”

“You aren't,” Jared acknowledges. “It was just... kind of a shock.”

“Clearly.” Jensen sighs. “Yeah. I could have thought that through better.”

He takes a step towards Jared, makes a move as if to reach for him, but drops his arm to his side. “But I'd really like for you to believe me. I don't feel pressured into anything. Hell, I'm the one chasing you – and I'm sorry it's made you uncomfortable – but I think this could be something good. I don't want to walk away without giving it a try.”

Jared bites his lip.

“Think about it?” Jensen says. “You've got my number. I'll quit bugging you.”

“Dinner,” Jared says. “Just dinner.”

Jensen's face lighting up is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Jared's poor already-stressed heart feels like it turns right over in his chest.

“Dinner,” Jensen says happily, grin stretching his face. “I'll pick you up. I'll be a perfect gentleman.”

 

 

 

By the time their Thursday night dinner date comes, Jared has way overthought things. He's reconsidered his choice of clothes at least eight times, finally settling on jeans and navy jacket over a white shirt. He's channeled his nervous energy into a run, push-ups, even cleaning his apartment and changing the sheets, trying not to think too hard about the implications in case it made him change his mind.

Dinner. Just dinner. For now. He can keep himself under control.

Dinner is amazing steak, low-key and rambling conversation, and everything Jared's ever wanted in a date. He tells some funny anecdotes from the hospital. Jensen talks about his exercise plan and when he's getting back to driving. He talks about being at the track, the smells and the sounds, and what turns his crank about racing. He describes the adrenaline, how the tension before a race gets him fired up. Jared lights up and explains how it's often very similar going into the OR, especially with the traumas.

“We get off on it. Adrenaline junkies. It's what keeps you fired up, and keeps you running through the long cases.” Jared waves his arm, trying to explain. “I come out of the OR and I'm totally high on it. It's like sparks.”

“We should get you out on the track,” Jensen grins.

There aren't any awkward moments. There's no tension at all, until the waiter brings their bill. Jared reaches for it, but Jensen snatches it away.

“I'm paying tonight,” he says. “I asked you. Besides – ” his voice drops, and he leans across the table, breath ghosting warm across Jared's cheek, “I don't want you to think I think I owe you a damn thing. Because I am going to do my best to get you in bed tonight.”

Jared's heart races. Lust roars through him like a wave, making his blood pound and breath catch. Heat spreads across his skin; his cock stirs and lengthens in the tight confines of his jeans. He tries to surreptitiously adjust himself as he stands, biting back a groan as the pressure and the rough friction of the denim provide momentary stimulation.

He looks up to see Jensen staring. Quick flash of pink tongue as Jensen licks his lips, and Jared can barely breathe.

“God.” Jensen's voice is little more than a hoarse mutter. “I want you so much.”

He tucks some bills into the folder and stands, holding out his hand to Jared. Jared takes it, and Jensen practically hauls him out of the restaurant.

They head for Jensen's car. Jensen unlocks Jared's door, but before Jared opens it, he's pushing Jared up against it and they're kissing.

It's frantic and messy and perfect. Their teeth clash, Jensen bites Jared's lip. Jensen presses in even closer and Jared can feel the press of his cock. He moans and his knees buckle.

“My place,” Jensen whispers, nibbling under Jared's jaw. “Now. Unless you want me to suck you off right here in the parking lot.”

“Mine's closer,” Jared stammers, and Jensen actually rocks back, as if stunned by the answer.

“No,” he says. “Next time. Tonight, you're on my turf.”

Jared has a far better appreciation of race car driving by the time Jensen pulls up to the curb in front of his place six minutes later. It's a nice ranch-style house, and Jared catches a glimpse of a good-sized yard, but he's not really paying attention to anything but Jensen.

The door has barely closed behind them before they're kissing again, tearing at each other's clothes. Jared vaguely hears buttons hitting the floor. He yanks Jensen's shirt over his head, and fumbles with the buckle of Jensen's belt. It would be easier if he weren't also sucking on Jensen's neck and if Jensen's hands weren't distracting him by squeezing his ass.

“Down here,” Jensen pants. They stagger down the hallway still kissing, reluctant to let go of each other for even a moment.

Jared registers a neat, sparsely decorated room furnished in dark colors, and then Jensen's pushing him down onto the very large bed and following him down, rutting their cocks together through their pants, and he loses focus on anything except the sensations flooding him.

He tears himself away from Jensen's mouth and licks his way down Jensen's bare chest, eliciting gasps as he goes, and sucks on the sharp edge of Jensen's hip bone just above the edge of his pants.

He yanks at the fabric. Jensen lifts his hips to help, shoving his underwear off at the same time, and Jared's mouth floods with saliva as Jensen's rigid cock springs free. It's as gorgeous as the rest of him, head purpled and plump, leaking clear fluid that Jared can't help but lean down and taste.

A taste isn't enough. Jensen whimpers, throwing his head back, as Jared licks and swirls his tongue around the tip of Jensen's cock, and lets out a hoarse yell when Jared sucks him down to the root.

It's been a while since Jared's done this, but possibly it's been a while for Jensen too, because Jared hadn't thought he was good enough to have someone coming within a couple of minutes. Jensen clutches at Jared's hair in warning only a few seconds before his cock swells and spasms, pumping jet after jet down Jared's throat.

“Fuck,” Jensen gasps. “Holy fucking shit.”

Jared pulls off, and rolls away, meaning to give Jensen a little time and space to recover. He reaches down to give his own cock a few strokes, but Jensen bats his hand away.

“Mine,” Jensen growls, and proceeds to beat Jared's record cock-sucking time. Jared tries to hold back, but when he looks down and sees his fantasy made real – Jensen looking up at him through dark lashes, cheeks hollowed as he sucks – it's all over.

They lie side by side, panting, slowly coming down.

Jensen finally breaks the silence.

“I guess I was lying about being a perfect gentleman.”

Jared laughs. “Nah. That was pretty perfect.”

He worries, suddenly, maybe that was too much, but Jensen's eyes crinkle as he smiles warmly, trailing fingertips along Jared's side. “Yeah. It was.”

“Thanks,” Jared says, a little awkwardly. “For persevering.”

“I figured it'd be worth it.” Jensen's hand finds Jared's; their fingers interlace. “And I was right.”

“Yeah,” Jared admits.

“Stay?” Jensen asks, and for the first time Jared hears a note of uncertainty.

“I wish I could,” he answers, and leans in to kiss the downturned corners of Jensen's mouth. “I've got an early morning. I don't want to disturb you.”

Jensen frowns. “I don't mind.”

“I do.” Jared drops his mouth to Jensen's neck and breathes in, loving the smell of him, sweaty and post-coital. “Besides, I need to get some sleep. And you are not conducive to that.”

Jensen wraps an arm around him. “Not enough? I thought I wore you out. I could try harder.”

“I bet,” Jared groans. “Seriously, though, I should go.”

 

 

 

Jared is way too giddy around the hospital the next day, even for him. A goofy grin keeps breaking out on his face. He manages to focus on his work and suppress his visible happiness when talking to patients in pain and distressed families, but it's a struggle.

He's trauma team leader once again, and he's already seen quite a lot of distressed patients and families by mid-afternoon, before there's a gunshot wound to the heart that brings Mike down to open the chest right there in the trauma bay.

“Rib spreader!” Mike snaps, one hand already in the guy's chest cavity. “Jesus, look, it just missed the valve here. Lucky guy. Somebody give me a stapler, I can't stand here with my finger in this hole all day!”

The rivulets of blood trickling from the stretcher slow, then stop. Mike packs gauze in the wound and tapes a clear plastic sheet over it. “Okay. Let's get him up to the OR. We'll clean and finish it up properly there.”

Mike's resident, the anesthesiologist, and several others crowd in around the stretcher to organize all the IV lines, oxygen, drugs, and various monitors needed for transport, as Mike steps back and rolls his shoulders. He pulls off his mask, gown and blood-stained gloves and rolls them up into a ball.

Jared takes some deep breaths, trying to calm down. The adrenaline, on top of his already good mood, has him beyond wired. And it looks like this guy is going to survive, against the odds. Mike's good, but gunshots to the heart are often dead on arrival, and even those who haven't gone into cardiac arrest yet usually don't pull through.

“So,” Mike says to him. “Now that we're in 'Serious But Stable' territory, instead of 'Holy Fucking Exsanguination' mode, we're going to step outside and you can give me the gory details.”

“Uh, twenty-two, drive-by event, possible accidental bystander...”

“No, dumbass. I mean _your_ details.”

Jared blinks. “Huh?”

“C'mon, Jay,” Mike says. “You're bouncing around here like a puppy on speed. If you tell me you didn't get laid this weekend, I'll report you for conduct unbecoming a doctor, i.e. Lying To Your Best Friends.”

“Without whom it wouldn't have happened,” Gen mutters.

“What?” Mike frowns, looking down at his scrub pants. His right lower leg is soaked in blood. “Damn it! I liked those socks.”

Jared gapes, spinning to face Gen. “You... it was _you!_ ”

Gen gives him her best expression of confused innocence, but Jared's seen her use it far too often to get the two of them out of trouble. He isn't fooled for a second. “It was! How'd he even know to ask you?”

She smirks, giving a tiny nod of acknowledgement. “Yeah, fine, it was me. He didn't know to ask me, of course. I gave it to him anyway. Figured you wouldn't mind.”

“That's totally against hospital policy,” Jared says, trying to frown.

“Oh hush. You know I love you.”

He does.

“He came down here on his way out of hospital, to say thank you. How many VIPs do you know who'd do that?” It's clearly rhetorical; she doesn't wait for an answer. “He even brought chocolate. The good stuff!”

She gives him a mischievous grin. “So I gave him a special appointment card with your cell number and told him to call you if he needed... _anything_ at all.”

Jared groans. “And you said it just like that, didn't you.”

“Duh.”

Mike laughs, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “Excellent job, pimping out our boy. Couldn't have done it better myself. I'm so proud.”

She slides out from under his arm. “Eww. Go change.”

“Your patient's leaving, Mike,” Jared says, motioning behind him to where the stretcher is being hurried out of the trauma bay towards the elevators. “Better catch up.”

“Shit.” Mike swivels his head back and forth. “Don't think I won't get it out of Gen later!” He takes off running.

“Well?” she says, hands on hips.

“I'm eternally in your debt?”

She grins. “That good, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, grinning ear to ear himself. “That good.”

 

 

 

Jared can't believe his luck.

He keeps thinking that something's gotta happen. The other shoe has to drop. Nothing can possibly be this perfect.

Okay, not _perfect._ Jensen's got a few annoying habits. Jared just isn't bothered. By any of it. Jensen could probably break his favorite mug and throw out his favorite threadbare shirt and borrow Jared's toothbrush and Jared would just go right on being hopelessly infatuated with him.

Jensen's intelligent, easy to talk to, and funny as hell. Whenever Jared's not at the hospital, he's either with Jensen or missing Jensen. He's never bored, and never feels like he needs space. Amazingly, it seems like Jensen doesn't either.

Jared likes Jensen's cooking. Jensen can sleep through Jared's snoring.

They fit.

Also, the sex just keeps getting better with practice. They say it takes ten thousand hours to become an expert at something. Jared's happy to put in as much time as required.

Still, he can hardly believe his luck. So it's with a sinking feeling, and a nagging whisper of _you should have seen this coming,_ that he hears Jensen say, “We need to talk.”

Jensen's been distracted through supper, not eating much, and not laughing at Jared's bad jokes like he usually does. Jared's beginning to think he knows why.

“I've been thinking. About what – about where this is going.” Jensen bites his lip, and Jared tenses. Oh god. He should have known it couldn't last.

“I'm thinking maybe it's time I came out.”

Jared's pole-axed. That was _not_ what he was expecting.

“I've done this before – no,” Jensen interrupts himself, “I've never done this before, Jared. I've never been as serious about anybody before. But I've done the sneaking around, hiding a relationship thing before, and you don't deserve that.” He shrugs. “And I don't want to do that. You're this amazing, hugely important person in my life. I don't want to hide you.”

“But... racing?” Jared says. “What about your career?”

“Fuck what anybody thinks,” Jensen says simply. “I've been worrying about that for years, and I'm tired of it. I'll still drive, somewhere, even if it's not on the big circuits. And you never know, it might be fine. Look at Michael Sam.” He snorts. “At least in racing, the other drivers don't actually have to worry about making physical contact with me.”

He bites his lip again. “I figured I should ask you, though. I won't if you don't want me to.”

Jared wrinkles his forehead in bewilderment. “Why would I mind? It's your career. I mean, I care about it for your sake, but honestly, it's your decision.”

“The headlines are going to be killer,” Jensen says. “And they won't all be good. You'll get dragged through the mud as well.”

Jared shrugs. “My family know I'm bisexual.”

“What about work?”

“Whatever,” Jared says. “The hospital hasn't got grounds to fire me. I do good work, and there's lots of it to go around. Any patients who don't want me working on them because I'm gay, well, fuck them.” He grins. “They can have Cassidy instead.”

Jensen frowns. “Is she...?”

“Oh, she's a great surgeon. Her bedside manner leaves something to be desired.” Jared shudders at the understatement.

“Well,” Jensen says after a long pause. “We doing this thing, then?”

“Yeah,” Jared says, reaching over to twine his fingers in Jensen's and feeling happiness well up inside him like a bubble. “We are.”

 

 

 

Jensen knew Morgan was a great manager, but he'd never considered it might be due to psychic powers. But as he's picking up the phone the next day, preparing to ask Morgan for a meeting at which he can break the news about coming out, the phone vibrates in his hand and Morgan's face appears on the screen.

“How're you doing?”

“Fine,” Jensen says. “What's up?”

“Are you free for a meeting today? There's something I need to talk to you about.”

“Sure,” Jensen says, mentally gulping. “At the office?”

“I was thinking somewhere else,” Morgan says. “I'm done here around four. What about Frankie's?”

Jensen is convinced that Morgan's found out about him and Jared, and that's why he wants to meet away from the office. He spends the afternoon telling himself not to worry, worrying, rehearsing his explanations, and wondering how the hell Morgan found out.

It turns out Morgan wants to talk to him about something else entirely – something that Jensen had completely forgotten. It seems weird that he could have forgotten something like attempted murder, but he's had a lot of other shit to occupy his mind lately.

“It was deliberate,” Morgan says. “They screwed with the steering controls. Maybe the brakes, too, although there's enough crash damage there that it's hard to be sure; they might have snapped free. But there's no question about the steering. It was designed to give out gradually; you wouldn't have noticed when you started driving.”

Jensen doesn't have a thing to say. He just stares blankly at Morgan. He'd thought about it, after Morgan had mentioned it in the hospital, but it seemed unreal. Like something out of a movie. He'd pretty much forgotten about it, over the weeks of pain and therapy and falling in love.

He drinks his beer slowly and lets the information sink in.

“Who?” he says finally. “Do you have any idea?”

“Ideas,” Morgan answers, and sighs heavily. “But nothing to go on. Mercedes and Ferrari are the teams most likely to win with you out of the way –”

“But they had a pretty good shot at it anyway,” Jensen says, and Morgan nods.

“Yeah. Unless there are a couple more freak accidents.”

Jensen bites his lip. “I can't see them... I mean, they're top because they take it seriously, you know?” He shakes his head. “They'd want to win fair and square.”

“There's a lot of money involved,” Morgan says heavily. “And it wouldn't be the drivers that were involved. I know you're a competitive bunch, but I can't see any of them going along with that either. They're out there, putting their asses on the line, knowing the risks of the race....”

It's Jensen's turn to nod in agreement. “Yeah.”

“Trying to get you disqualified would be one thing,” Morgan says. “Stealing sponsorships, or poaching a driver to another team – well, that's part of the business. Not this. If another team's involved, it'll be management. Not the drivers.”

He downs the last of his drink and eyes Jensen's near-empty glass. “Want another?”

“No, I'm good.” Jensen traces a finger idly around a whorl in the wood-grain pattern on the table. “Listen, Morgan, I've been thinking....” He trails off. Morgan waits for him to say something, but Jensen can't quite bring himself to spit it out.

“So have I,” Morgan says as the pause starts getting uncomfortably long. “About going to the police. I don't think we can keep it out of the media if we do. But I don't think we can get any closer to figuring out who the son-of-a-bitch is that was behind this without their help.”

“Do you think they'll believe you?” Jensen frowns. “They'll wonder why we didn't say anything before. And they probably can't get anything off the car at this point. Your guys have been all over it, plus didn't it catch fire? They'll have a hell of a time getting fingerprints, or whatever.”

Morgan sighs. “I know. But I doubt the police would have taken such a crazy allegation seriously if we'd talked to them before. There were witnesses saying you were driving erratically, and the insurance company had looked at the car and ruled it accidental. This way, at least we've got something to give them to prove it's worth their time.”

“Is it, though?” Jensen finishes his own drink and spins the empty glass on the table, summoning his nerve.

“Maybe you should just let it go,” he says.

“What?” Morgan looks at him like he's just grown a third arm. “Jensen, what the hell? I've just told you someone sabotaged your car, tried to get you _killed,_ and you're suggesting we just ignore that? What happens the next time?”

“Maybe there shouldn't be a next time.”

Morgan does a double-take. “You're not serious.” He pushes his glass away. “I don't want you to be in any danger. That's why we need to take this to the authorities, get to whoever's behind it. But you can't tell me you're going to give up driving? Is it your leg? I thought you were all fixed up.”

“I'll still drive,” Jensen says. He takes a deep breath. “I might not drive for Red Bull.”

“Where the hell would you go?” Morgan sounds stunned – and hurt, rather than angry. That possibility hadn't occurred to Jensen.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he says hastily. “Not to another team. I'm –”

His heart is in his mouth. There's no going back. But it's time.

“I'm gay,” he says. “Danni and I are just friends. Racing was more important. But now it's different. I've got a boyfriend, and it's – well, it's something special. I'm tired of pretending.”

Morgan's silent.

“I'm going to come out publicly. It'll probably be a mess, but I don't care. I'll still drive, somewhere. But I understand if the team doesn't want to bring me back on next season.”

Morgan still doesn't say anything.

“You can say it's the injury. I don't mind.” Jensen stares at his hands. “I don't want the team to suffer in the press.”

Morgan finally breaks the silence. “Damn it. I'm beginning to think the doctors were wrong.”

Jensen frowns, still not looking at him. “About what?”

“I think you must have suffered brain damage after all.”

Jensen blinks and looks up. Morgan is staring at him with an expression of fond annoyance.

“Jesus, Jensen. You think we'd dump you for that?”

Jensen's expression answers for him.

Morgan rolls his eyes. “It's like you don't know me at all.”

“What about the owners?” Jensen crosses his arms, still not encouraged. “This isn't going to be the type of press they're into.”

“Attempted murder of their top driver isn't press they were looking for either,” Morgan points out. “But they're stuck with it.” He smirks. “The timing's pretty good, actually. You'll be this hugely sympathetic figure. What better time for the big reveal?”

Jensen regards him with surprise. “You're taking this way better than I thought you would.”

“There's a silver lining to every cloud.”

Jensen gives him a questioning look.

“I presume you've broken up with Danneel.”

Jensen rolls his eyes. “I should have known. Yes, of course.”

Morgan frowns. “Does she...”

“She knows.” Jensen rubs the back of his neck. “She's always known.”

 

 

“Coming Back – And Coming Out?!”

Jared reads the headline to Jensen, who snorts into his coffee. “Wow. That's some clever journalism. I bet whoever thought that up is patting themselves on the back pretty hard right now.”

Jared ignores him and continues scanning down the column. “Jensen Ackles announced yesterday that he would be returning to professional racing next spring, after an injury that many thought would end his career.”

“It wasn't that bad.” Jensen butters his toast. “Hakkinen had emergency surgery on the side of the track, and he only missed one race.”

“Yeah, but you're an old guy,” Jared says. “You're practically retirement age anyway.”

“No bacon for you,” Jensen grumbles, pulling the plate out of Jared's reach.

“Be nice to me, or I won't look after you in your old age,” Jared says, and continues reading. “The winner of last year's Australian and United States Grand Prix, who drives for Red Bull Racing-Renault, suffered chest injuries and a broken leg in a crash off the track, and observers suggested he might choose to retire.”

“Skip to the end,” Jensen says. “Or better yet, skip it entirely. I already know all this. So do you.”

“Yes, but I want to see how they describe our not-so-forbidden love,” Jared says.

“You're the one who kept insisting it was forbidden.”

“Well, it was. Then.” Jared keeps reading. “His decision to resume driving was not the most unexpected thing the former US Driver of the Year revealed yesterday, however...”

“Put that down.” Jensen's foot nudges Jared's under the table. “Seriously. Haven't you got better things to do?”

“Like what?” It's a lazy Saturday morning. Cassidy's on call, and Jared's turned his pager off. He doesn't have to go anywhere...

“Me.”

...except back to bed.

Things heat up quickly. Hands sliding inside pajamas, gripping, stroking, probing. Grunts and moans and the sticky, slippery sounds of flesh on flesh.

“This okay?” Jensen hovers over Jared, gently biting the back of his neck. “You ready? I don't wanna rush you into anything.”

“Oh my god,” Jared says, “shut up and drive.”


End file.
